The researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory we conducting an experiment with the goal of turning carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into methanol, a synthetic and very poisonous, flammable alcohol. To achieve this, they developed an electrochemical process that involved a catalyst, something that increases the rate of a chemical reaction but doesn't undergo a chemical change, made of copper nanoparticles fixed inside carbon spikes and nitrogen. Since this catalyst was made of common materials using nanotechnology, it greatly reduces the expenses. Applying voltage to the catalyst triggers a chemical reaction that reverses the combustion process, turning the CO2 into methanol. Unfortunately, the scientists didn't reach the goal of methanol; instead, they created ethanol, an alcohol that is used in medicines, perfumes, iodine, hand sanitizer, libations and most importantly, an additive in both rocket and engine fuel.
“We’re taking carbon dioxide, a waste product of combustion and we’re pushing that combustion reaction backwards with very high selectivity to a useful fuel,” the lead scientist, Adam Rondinone said. “Ethanol was a surprise—it’s extremely difficult to go straight from carbon dioxide to ethanol with a single catalyst.”
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1. Since carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is produced daily at an alarming rate, what affect do you think this discovery will have on our industrial society?
2. If you thought this was a good discovery, what could some negative effects be? If you thought this was a bad idea, what could some positive effects be?
My Opinion:
I think this is a great and powerful discovery. We have a copious amount of CO2 in our atmosphere and now we can harness it, then turn it into something useful while cutting down on the greenhouse gasses. If this idea were scaled up on a larger scale, I think it could potentially be a great way to store the extra energy from windmills and solar panels.
A downfall of this could be using up and extreme amount of CO2 so that Earth will experience global cooling, but I seriously doubt that will ever happen. But a practical issue I have with this is the fact that we would harness the ethanol, but turn around and combust it right back into CO2 so it might not cut down greenhouse gasses, but regulate them.
Replies
Great job Lindsey!
i think people just have good karma, changing CO2 to ethanol. it is a big discovery that we found it but it can have some dangerous risks goign through with all this. over all i think that is will have a good outcome with trying to change global warming
This is an innovative use of a natural waste product. Even though the initial purpose was a dangerous one, I think this accident had a positive outcome. This has the potential to diminish some of our environmental issues.
A negative quality of this creation is that the original intention of this product was going to be dangerous, so something could go wrong and the result could be threatening.
That's a really good point! I agree this is risky process that could have dangerous outcomes. But I think the positive effects outweigh the negative ones.
I think it's pure luck that they turned CO2 to Ethanol. It's a huge discovery and it would be very good for our earth's atmosphere, because now we can use the big amount of CO2 and turn it into something good. That way we can try to stop global warming effectively.
I think it was pretty lucky, and I agree that it would be an effective way to control global warming.
I think that it is amazing because we have been struggling to stop global warming and now that we can get rid of CO2 cost effectively. It seems cool that we can use gas, then use the CO2 when it is released and use that to repower your car.. I don't think global cooling would happen because we could simply use more fossil fuels.
I agree. That was an extreme idea, but the idea of reusing CO2 is pretty cool.
I think a lot of people will opt to use this over other products to reduce CO2 because they believe in global warming which is another whole issue that I will not discuss right now. I think this will be great for our natural resources though so aren't using so much fossil fuels and depleting our resources. Also hopefully, this will be cost efficient.
I agree. It will be cost efficient for sure, and now we will be able to regulate how much CO2 is in our atmosphere.
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