{"id":61178,"date":"2019-03-06T07:26:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-06T06:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=61178"},"modified":"2021-09-09T21:30:50","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T19:30:50","slug":"climate-rewind-scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-back-into-coal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/climate-rewind-scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-back-into-coal\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate rewind: Scientists turn carbon dioxide back into coal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our approach to carbon capture and storage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2<\/sub> from a gas into solid particles of carbon.<\/p>\n

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers an alternative pathway for safely and permanently removing the greenhouse gas from our atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Current technologies for carbon capture and storage focus on compressing CO2<\/sub> into a liquid form, transporting it to a suitable site and injecting it underground.<\/p>\n

But implementation has been hampered by engineering challenges, issues around economic viability and environmental concerns about possible leaks from the storage sites.<\/p>\n

RMIT researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said converting CO2<\/sub> into a solid could be a more sustainable approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we can\u2019t literally turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock,\u201d Daeneke, an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo date, CO2<\/sub> has only been converted into a solid at extremely high temperatures, making it industrially unviable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy using liquid metals as a catalyst, we\u2019ve shown it\u2019s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that\u2019s efficient and scalable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile more research needs to be done, it\u2019s a crucial first step to delivering solid storage of carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n

How the carbon conversion works<\/h3>\n

Lead author, Dr Dorna Esrafilzadeh, a Vice-Chancellor\u2019s Research Fellow in RMIT\u2019s School of Engineering, developed the electrochemical technique to capture and convert atmospheric CO2<\/sub> to storable solid carbon.<\/p>\n

To convert CO2<\/sub>, the researchers designed a liquid metal catalyst with specific surface properties that made it extremely efficient at conducting electricity while chemically activating the surface.<\/p>\n

The carbon dioxide is dissolved in a beaker filled with an electrolyte liquid and a small amount of the liquid metal, which is then charged with an electrical current.<\/p>\n

The CO2<\/sub> slowly converts into solid flakes of carbon, which are naturally detached from the liquid metal surface, allowing the continuous production of carbonaceous solid.<\/p>\n

Esrafilzadeh said the carbon produced could also be used as an electrode.<\/p>\n

\u201cA side benefit of the process is that the carbon can hold electrical charge, becoming a supercapacitor, so it could potentially be used as a component in future vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process also produces synthetic fuel as a by-product, which could also have industrial applications.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research was conducted at RMIT\u2019s MicroNano Research Facility and the RMIT Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility, with lead investigator, Honorary RMIT and ARC Laureate Fellow, Professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh (now UNSW).<\/p>\n

The research is supported by the Australian Research Council Centre for Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES).<\/p>\n

The collaboration involved researchers from Germany (University of Munster), China (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics), the US (North Carolina State University) and Australia (UNSW, University of Wollongong, Monash University, QUT).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The paper is published in Nature Communications<\/em> (\u201cRoom temperature CO2 reduction to solid carbon species on liquid metals featuring atomically thin ceria interfaces\u201d, DOI: 10.1038\/s41467-019-08824-8<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our approach to carbon capture and storage. The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[10744,10743],"supplier":[4483,13299,2718,4219,13483,4126,14063,292],"class_list":["post-61178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-carboncapture","tag-useco2","supplier-monash-university","supplier-nanjing-university-of-aeronautics-and-astronautics","supplier-north-carolina-state-university","supplier-queensland-university-of-technology-qut","supplier-rmit-university-melbourne-aus","supplier-university-of-wollongong","supplier-unsw-sydney","supplier-universitaet-muenster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61178"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=61178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}