9 ms·

Engineers develop a process to make formate fuel from CO2

83 points by westurner 3y ago

westurner 3y ago
"A carbon-efficient bicarbonate electrolyzer" (2023) https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00485-X https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/... : > Carbon efficiency is one of the most pressing problems of carbon dioxide electroreduction today. While there have been studies on anion exchange membrane electrolyzers with carbon dioxide (gas) and bipolar membrane electrolyzers with bicarbonate (aqueous) feedstocks, both suffer from low carbon efficiency. In anion exchange membrane electrolyzers, this is due to carbonate anion crossover, whereas in bipolar membrane electrolyzers, the exsolution of carbon dioxide (gas) from the bicarbonate solution is the culprit. Here, we first elucidate the root cause of the low carbon efficiency of liquid bicarbonate electrolyzers with thermodynamic calculations and then achieve carbon-efficient carbon dioxide electroreduction by adopting a near-neutral-pH cation exchange membrane, a glass fiber intermediate layer, and carbon dioxide (gas) partial pressure management. We convert highly concentrated bicarbonate solution to solid formate fuel with a yield (carbon efficiency) of greater than 96%. A device test is demonstrated at 100 mA cm−2 with a full-cell voltage of 3.1 V for over 200 h.
westurner 3y ago
"Aluminum formate Al(HCOO)3: Earth-abundant, scalable, & material for CO2 capture" (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33501182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33501182
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Sigh. The PR department of universities are about selling IP, getting grant$ to fund their toys, and sometimes attracting PI's and students to do the work based on the university's reputation.
  - stonogo 3y ago
    What should they be focused on?
    - readthenotes1 3y ago
      Educating students
      - 1letterunixname 3y ago
        That's the bottom labor pool and the source of funding to build buildings. Licensing & PR departments > Dept chair > TP > PI > AP > VP > PhD candidate > Master's candidate > TA > ugrad
      - dv_dt 3y ago
        There is a no-funding land that is needed to advance society. Between basic scientific research and advanced low probability engineering research no for-profit corporation is willing to fund - so it’s mostly the domain of the government allocating grants to universities and labs.
      - Qwertious 3y ago
        That requires students to educate, and money to pay for the whole affair.
      - stonogo 3y ago
        Surely that should be left to the professors, and not the PR department?
        readthenotes1 3y ago
        Unless the PR department was educating students. They could probably do institutional PR off student projects since MIT already gets top talent
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    Relevant: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174 https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174
1letterunixname 3y ago
Sorry to pour cold dihydrogen monoxide on their press release birthday cake: It's not sequestration, so it's not all that useful. Take all the process losses to use the inputs as electricity directly, be it charging EV batteries or directly with mass transit motors.
- callalex 3y ago
  What about weight-sensitive applications like aviation and shipping?
  - 1letterunixname 3y ago
    FF aviation should be abandoned because of the climate change implications. It's extremely inefficient. Large EV gliders are workable. Solar Impulse 2 was a record-setting PoC on a smaller, cheaper scale. Shipping by full EV maritime shipping is on the horizon. Hybrid cargo ships are already a thing. (Aasfjell) Rail shipping is extremely energy efficient. This is how most cargo should be transported. A global rail transport network should be seriously considered.
    - mikewarot 3y ago
      Waterborne shipping is even more efficient, we need to repeat the Jones Act in the US.
      - 1letterunixname 3y ago
        Nawh, we need to repeal that protectionism. ;]
    - d_silin 3y ago
      You won't be able to ship 300+ people across Atlantic any time soon on a EV glider. So, a realistic take is using biofuels instead of kerosene for aicraft engines.
      - 3y ago
jlaporte 3y ago
The headline number of 96% (in the original new release) is very misleading. What matters is not the fraction of gaseous carbon that ends up in the fuel (the yield), it's the energetic efficiency of the process. ie: Nobody will spend 100 Joules of energy to store, say, 1 Joule of energy. The paper says their process has low energy efficiency (low enough they don't seem to want to say the number)[1]: > ...rather than relying on the CO2(gas) feedstock, bipolar membrane (BPM) electrolyzers with aqueous bicarbonate HCO3−(aq) input were demonstrated (Figure S2b). In principle, the energy-intensive CO2 regeneration process could be circumvented. In practice, however, the BPM induces a large overpotential, causing *low energy efficiency*, and it still suffers from CO2 escape, low FE, low yield, and low operation lifetime. [** emphasis added] [1] https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00485-X https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/...
- pokstad 3y ago
  Well not no-one. Maybe if you are on a spaceship and need to replenish your carbon-fuel-cell with your fusion reactor and can’t waste any carbon.
  - diroussel 3y ago
    That pretty much is the definition of no-one.
- nabakin 3y ago
  There have been a few suspect title changes on HN as of late but this would be a good one.
- silisili 3y ago
  Is it feasible/possible to knowingly do that, and still 'win'? That is, power the process with nuclear or some renewable, not necessarily as a way to get fuel, but a way to get carbon out of the air?
  - nomel 3y ago
wg0 3y ago
It seems quest for energy isn't coming out of oil wells or coal and nuclear. Nothing about fusion, no feasible, practical and scalable energy storage on the horizon. Yet.
stevage 3y ago
> even the best available practical hydrogen storage tanks allow the gas to leak out at a rate of about 1 percent per day Wow, I did not know that.
- kulahan 3y ago
  Really hard to keep a molecule that small in one place for long! I've definitely heard that it really just flies out of steel containers at shockingly high rates
  - black6 3y ago
    Edit: I misunderstood context... My comment is regarding liquid hydrogen storage vessels. Gaseous can be stored indefinitely with proper seals. It doesn't leak; it has to be vented. Hydrogen cannot be a liquid, no matter the pressure, at ambient temperatures, and there will always be heat leak. So your liquid hydrogen is always boiling, and with a good vacuum jacked dewar you'll lose 1-1.5% of the vessel's volume a day.
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  Also hydrogen has an indirect effect on climate. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/atmospheric-implications-of-increased-hydrogen-use https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/atmospheric-impli...
starbase 3y ago
96% efficient at converting feedstock to fuel, not 96% of energy efficient
exabrial 3y ago
The most best carbon capture technology imho is turning co2 into bricks. Reading between the lines, what I’m saying is produce a wood replacement product that is more efficient than growing a tree.
ForgedEngine 3y ago
>"methanol is toxic" >makes formate

83 points by westurner 3y ago

"A carbon-efficient bicarbonate electrolyzer" (2023) https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00485-X https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/... : > Carbon efficiency is one of the most pressing problems of carbon dioxide electroreduction today. While there have been studies on anion exchange membrane electrolyzers with carbon dioxide (gas) and bipolar membrane electrolyzers with bicarbonate (aqueous) feedstocks, both suffer from low carbon efficiency. In anion exchange membrane electrolyzers, this is due to carbonate anion crossover, whereas in bipolar membrane electrolyzers, the exsolution of carbon dioxide (gas) from the bicarbonate solution is the culprit. Here, we first elucidate the root cause of the low carbon efficiency of liquid bicarbonate electrolyzers with thermodynamic calculations and then achieve carbon-efficient carbon dioxide electroreduction by adopting a near-neutral-pH cation exchange membrane, a glass fiber intermediate layer, and carbon dioxide (gas) partial pressure management. We convert highly concentrated bicarbonate solution to solid formate fuel with a yield (carbon efficiency) of greater than 96%. A device test is demonstrated at 100 mA cm−2 with a full-cell voltage of 3.1 V for over 200 h.

westurner 3y ago

"Aluminum formate Al(HCOO)3: Earth-abundant, scalable, & material for CO2 capture" (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33501182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33501182

1letterunixname 3y ago
Sigh. The PR department of universities are about selling IP, getting grant$ to fund their toys, and sometimes attracting PI's and students to do the work based on the university's reputation.
- stonogo 3y ago
  What should they be focused on?
  - readthenotes1 3y ago
    Educating students
    - 1letterunixname 3y ago
      That's the bottom labor pool and the source of funding to build buildings. Licensing & PR departments > Dept chair > TP > PI > AP > VP > PhD candidate > Master's candidate > TA > ugrad
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      There is a no-funding land that is needed to advance society. Between basic scientific research and advanced low probability engineering research no for-profit corporation is willing to fund - so it’s mostly the domain of the government allocating grants to universities and labs.
    - Qwertious 3y ago
      That requires students to educate, and money to pay for the whole affair.
    - stonogo 3y ago
      Surely that should be left to the professors, and not the PR department?
      - readthenotes1 3y ago
        Unless the PR department was educating students. They could probably do institutional PR off student projects since MIT already gets top talent
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Relevant: https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174 https://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174

1letterunixname 3y ago

Sorry to pour cold dihydrogen monoxide on their press release birthday cake: It's not sequestration, so it's not all that useful. Take all the process losses to use the inputs as electricity directly, be it charging EV batteries or directly with mass transit motors.

callalex 3y ago
What about weight-sensitive applications like aviation and shipping?
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  FF aviation should be abandoned because of the climate change implications. It's extremely inefficient. Large EV gliders are workable. Solar Impulse 2 was a record-setting PoC on a smaller, cheaper scale. Shipping by full EV maritime shipping is on the horizon. Hybrid cargo ships are already a thing. (Aasfjell) Rail shipping is extremely energy efficient. This is how most cargo should be transported. A global rail transport network should be seriously considered.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    Waterborne shipping is even more efficient, we need to repeat the Jones Act in the US.
    - 1letterunixname 3y ago
      Nawh, we need to repeal that protectionism. ;]
  - d_silin 3y ago
    You won't be able to ship 300+ people across Atlantic any time soon on a EV glider. So, a realistic take is using biofuels instead of kerosene for aicraft engines.
    - 3y ago

jlaporte 3y ago

The headline number of 96% (in the original new release) is very misleading. What matters is not the fraction of gaseous carbon that ends up in the fuel (the yield), it's the energetic efficiency of the process. ie: Nobody will spend 100 Joules of energy to store, say, 1 Joule of energy. The paper says their process has low energy efficiency (low enough they don't seem to want to say the number)[1]: > ...rather than relying on the CO2(gas) feedstock, bipolar membrane (BPM) electrolyzers with aqueous bicarbonate HCO3−(aq) input were demonstrated (Figure S2b). In principle, the energy-intensive CO2 regeneration process could be circumvented. In practice, however, the BPM induces a large overpotential, causing *low energy efficiency*, and it still suffers from CO2 escape, low FE, low yield, and low operation lifetime. [** emphasis added] [1] https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/S2666-3864(23)00485-X https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/...

pokstad 3y ago
Well not no-one. Maybe if you are on a spaceship and need to replenish your carbon-fuel-cell with your fusion reactor and can’t waste any carbon.
- diroussel 3y ago
  That pretty much is the definition of no-one.
nabakin 3y ago
There have been a few suspect title changes on HN as of late but this would be a good one.
silisili 3y ago
Is it feasible/possible to knowingly do that, and still 'win'? That is, power the process with nuclear or some renewable, not necessarily as a way to get fuel, but a way to get carbon out of the air?
- nomel 3y ago

wg0 3y ago

It seems quest for energy isn't coming out of oil wells or coal and nuclear. Nothing about fusion, no feasible, practical and scalable energy storage on the horizon. Yet.

stevage 3y ago

> even the best available practical hydrogen storage tanks allow the gas to leak out at a rate of about 1 percent per day Wow, I did not know that.

kulahan 3y ago
Really hard to keep a molecule that small in one place for long! I've definitely heard that it really just flies out of steel containers at shockingly high rates
- black6 3y ago
  Edit: I misunderstood context... My comment is regarding liquid hydrogen storage vessels. Gaseous can be stored indefinitely with proper seals. It doesn't leak; it has to be vented. Hydrogen cannot be a liquid, no matter the pressure, at ambient temperatures, and there will always be heat leak. So your liquid hydrogen is always boiling, and with a good vacuum jacked dewar you'll lose 1-1.5% of the vessel's volume a day.
tonyedgecombe 3y ago
Also hydrogen has an indirect effect on climate. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/atmospheric-implications-of-increased-hydrogen-use https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/atmospheric-impli...

starbase 3y ago

96% efficient at converting feedstock to fuel, not 96% of energy efficient

exabrial 3y ago

The most best carbon capture technology imho is turning co2 into bricks. Reading between the lines, what I’m saying is produce a wood replacement product that is more efficient than growing a tree.

ForgedEngine 3y ago

>"methanol is toxic" >makes formate