r/science • u/Wagamaga • Aug 06 '20

Chemistry Turning carbon dioxide into liquid fuel. Scientists have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost.

https://www.anl.gov/article/turning-carbon-dioxide-into-liquid-fuel
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u/KuriousInu Grad Student | Chemical Engineering | Heterogeneous Catalysis Aug 06 '20

Generally enzymes are expensive and not scalable and are best suited to highly specific chemicals things with chirality etc. When it comes to C2 or smaller I think heterogeneous catalysts are the better, possibly only option for industry.

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u/LilithNikita Aug 06 '20

They used a patented technology for this which originated from DNA replication. It was shortly before crisp came up and was just a bit better than usally used one. But it worked quite good.

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20 edited Aug 07 '20

Is ethanol practical for air travel, sea vessels and as a replacement for diesel? That's the real question.

Edit Wow, got in real Early on this one!

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u/BlueShellOP Aug 06 '20

I'm just a shadetree mechanic who works on Aircooled VWs and I can tell you that no, Ethanol is not a drop in replacement for diesel engines. It's barely a substitute for gasoline as is. Diesel fuel has to burn slower, and the ignition is different.

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u/CisterPhister Aug 06 '20

Ah but many farmed oils can successfully replace diesel fuel, often without additional processing. Rudolph Diesel ran his original engine on peanut oil.

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u/Wants-NotNeeds Aug 06 '20

Ever see that episode of Myth Busters when Adam Savage poured used, gross filtered, fryer oil into an old Chevy small block V8?

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u/advertentlyvertical Aug 06 '20

no, what were the results?

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u/Wants-NotNeeds Aug 06 '20

Well, it ran. And kept running for, IDK, an hour or more? It was a really old junkyard engine, sitting on blocks IIRC. I think it eventually overheated. Honestly, I was astonished it even fired up!

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u/halvess Aug 07 '20

Vegetable oil is extremely powerful in terms os energy release. The problem is that we need to put lots of energy to make the reaction start and I don't know if it has good compression rate or explosive potential.

What I know, anectodaly, that is very easy to set a house on fire with kitchen oil. As a teenager I heated up a spoon of oil to see if it would burn and the flame raised was about 1,5x my height. Fun and scary