Posted on 10/19/2016 7:39:21 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
OAK RIDGE, Tenn.,—In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. Their finding, which involves nanofabrication and catalysis science, was serendipitous. Video follows.
“We discovered somewhat by accident that this material worked,” said ORNL’s Adam Rondinone, lead author of the team’s study published in ChemistrySelect. “We were trying to study the first step of a proposed reaction when we realized that the catalyst was doing the entire reaction on its own.”
The team used a catalyst made of carbon, copper and nitrogen and applied voltage to trigger a complicated chemical reaction that essentially reverses the combustion process. With the help of the nanotechnology-based catalyst which contains multiple reaction sites, the solution of carbon dioxide dissolved in water turned into ethanol with a yield of 63 percent. Typically, this type of electrochemical reaction results in a mix of several different products in small amounts. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...
They won’t be using 40 year old 2 strokes on Mars...
They won’t be using 40 year old 2 strokes on Mars...
Ethanol octane rating is 113.
So, this makes it energetically downhill from CO2 to ethanol? I didn’t think so.
Maybe we can build more dams to provide the electrical power to do this. I didn’t think so.
Either that, or use 98 octane ethanol-free gas, a product that requires considerably more effort to obtain than merely wandering down to your corner convenience store. And it’s $8.00 a gallon where I buy it. But that’s still cheaper than having the fuel system rebuilt every year or two.
How does Mars come into this at all. I’m talking about mowers, push and riders; 2 cycle tillers, string trimmers, hedge cutters, blowers and all that other home equipment.
To add insult to injury, my car - none of the three that I’ve had that ALL had O2 sensors go bad because of the ethanol contamination that causes them to malfunction (BTW it is proven ethanol affects wideband O2 sensors). And in case you’re wondering, the cheapest you can replace one outside of doing it yourself is over $100. I finally just bought an OBD II sensor tool that just resets the fault light.
Why would I do that...it's true. Just don't let the water get in it.
Also, you still cannot show me a site where ethanol added gas is more verifiably efficient.
A site? I'll tell you what;
Go talk to a gasoline transport driver. If he has a clue, he'll tell you that they take stock "off the rack" refinery gas @ 82 octane. Each state has different specs, which is a cluster, so in both your state and mine, they then dump in the specific additives to bring it into state compliance...including the ethanol....Then they fill his truck. IF you could get your hands on 82 octane "mixer" gas, it would ping, kickback, and backfire through the intake because it explodes, instead of a productive controlled combustion.
It's the same thing as trying to run a high performance/high compression race engine on regular gas.
You're just an ethanol blowhard with no evidence but invective and YOU are the one who "doesn't know better."
No I'm not, I've learned how to operate the equipment I have with the fuel I can get. You're the one hurling invectives.
I work in the automotive parts industry, I also sell small engine parts. I educated myself early on, as I had the same problems and attitude as you (well maybe not as bad) I've done a lot of reading, done my own experiments, FIXED THE PROBLEM...I've spoken to the Maine Snowmobile Owners Association, the Maine Used Car Dealers Association, many many REAL mechanics...and the tank-truck drivers, they all agree with me.
Additionally, I run and maintain my own wintertime snow gear, which I count on to get me out of Maine winter snowstorms. Do you?
Did I mention I fixed the problem, and also told you how to do it?
Gasoline current sold today is NOT more efficient than gasoline untainted by it.
I never said it was, there's way too much alcohol in it. But the leaded fuel would immediately destroy your converter, and the MBTE was an idiotic idea, quickly repealed.
By the way...ALL your favorite "gasolines" are deliberately "tainted" with something, just so it will work.
So if you can't understand what I wrote, go to the damn airport and get some 100LL (of course it will foul your plugs)
Uh oh, the corn lobby is going to flip out.
Haiku Guy wrote:
This process cannot do anything but make the amount of Carbon Dioxide in the environment go up.
________________________________________________________
It ain’t necessarily so!
If the energy comes from wind or solar that cannot be used on the grid for lack of demand then even if the process is inefficient it is essentially free.
I have 12KW of solar on my roof, I average on a good day between 60kw to 70kw of generation but, I can’t use all that, my normal usage is only 30-40kw per day. If I could put my 30-40kw excess production into liquid fuel as a backup to run my generator I think that would be great, more than great I would jump on it in a New York minute.
Putting my extra into a battery is inefficient too and using the battery decreases the life of the battery. Batteries are expensive, VERY expensive. I would much rather use free fuel to run the generator when needed than the battery.
Where I live the utility company will not buy back my excess production. They will hold it for me like a battery but if the grid is down how do I get my power back from them. I would rather not use my generator or battery but would rather use the generator than the battery if I have to use one or the other.
Sure this might work in a laboratory, but it is a long way from being a practical process on an industrial scale and at what cost. Our current corn ethanol boondoggle works only because of massive government subsidy from planting the corn to pumping the ethanol into your tank. Ethanol is a poor fuel and the energy needed to produce, ship and blend it with gasoline is more than obtained from using it as a motor fuel. I doubt this process would be any more energy efficient .
I understood what you wrote perfectly. It is a long and drawn out explanation off how to add, adjust and compensate for the ills of ethanol and other additives. Your solution? Just add more stuff to increase the octane to bring efficiency back up and then to pooh-pooh off effects on 2 cycle engines when you “maintain your own snow blower- la di dah.
No I don’t have a snow blower (and I doubt yours is 2-stroke) but I have many other 2 cycles. 2 hedge trimmers, two string trimmers, two blowers, one chain saw and a 4 cycle push lawn mower and two big riders that I’ve had to rework the carbs on all. You can stick your octane where the sun don’t shine ethanol man.
Actually this process is already more efficient than photosynthesis to extracting sugar which yeast can only ferment C6 sugars and half a plants sugars are C5, sugar cane is one of the most efficient C4 plants in photosynthesis and it peaks out at 1% photonic conversion of light energy to all carbohydrates which 30% is lignin, and 70% is split 50/50 with C6+C5 sugars. So 1% of the sunlight falling on a sugar cane plant gets converted to carbohydrates and only 45% of that is fermentable into ethanol, yeast are about 60% eff at converting that 45% into ethanol the rest ends up as CO2 gas. for an overall sun to ethanol via yeast eff of 0.0027%
this electrochemical process is 63% faraday efficient meaning 63% of the electrons flowing into the catalyst end up creating molecules of ethanol. Modern solar cells are 18% efficiency for converting photons into electron current. given a 63% electron to ethanol conversion the overall eff is 11.35% that is a 2 full order of magnitudes more efficient put another way for a given sq meter of area in the sun this process would produce on an energy equivalent basis 42 times the ethanol than plants.
the simple truth is terrestrial plants are terribly inefficient at solar photosynthetic conversion. marine plants with out lignin production can hit upwards of 10% specifically kelp and other brown algae.
for those wondering I hold a masters in Geosciences with 2 full years of NSF funded research in biofuel efficiency. The numbers above are ruff but factually accurate in relative terms. I currently make a killing in the oil industry so I have no vested interest to pimp a technology. I’m just pointing out that electrochemical process almost always beat nature.
scale is the issue as is catalyst cost, this would be a great way to store wind energy at night when the costs go negative as in the power district pays large consumers to use enegry so the grid stays stable. it happens here in Texas a lot during the winter. ethanol is also one OH molecule from ethane the building block of nearly all petrochemicals, plastics HDPE,LDPE ect. ethene can be polymerized into any even number hydrocarbons, C8 is octane,C12 is dodecene aka jet fuel,C16 is diesel.the technology to dehydrate ethanol to ethane is industrial scale used every around the world, the fluid catalyst tech to convert ethane to ethene and to dimers,trimers and higher poly molecules is also industrial scaled.
Mix nitrate fertilizer with water and the mixture gets cold, energy is required for the process. The nano-chemistry may allow thermal energy to supply part or most of the energy needed, if the nanotechnology can extract electrical energy from thermal potential.
Chlorophyll produces electrical charges from light, stores sufficient electrical energy to drive a chemical process, and coordinates the combining of electrical potential and chemistry processes to create carbohydrates.
That's exactly what I said. 82 octane rating, at the rack.
It will remove the following from your fuel system: Fuel lines, gaskets, seals, and the ability to get the engine to start or run.
Not unless you have a 70's or older machine when they used rubber components. Alcohol removes the varnish from your tank and deposits it in your filter or carburetor, it may even clog the tank outlet. Eventually the varnish will be completely removed.
It's not the ethanol which causes the most damage. It is the chemical produced by the mixing of ethanol and water .
CORRECT! Except that "chemical" IS water! There is no resultant chemical reaction, alcohol simply "mixes" with both gasoline and water.
Water is not supposed to be in your fuel system. Before ethanol/fuel, the same thing happened and the gas WOULD NOT MIX with the water. As a consequence, it would run to the bottom of the tank and cause problems.
THE SOLUTION???
You would add some "HEET" (ethanol) to fix the problem.
That's why they used to have sediment bowls with the clear glass, so you could see the water. That's also why they "sump" aircraft fuel tanks (drain from the bottom) before they can take off, as their fuel still does not mix with water.
(water vapor accumulated in the tank)...We must immediately outlaw water vapor so we can continue to use ethanol.
They did.
That's the entire point of this discussion. Modern vehicles are mandated to have sealed fuel tanks TO AVOID WATER VAPOR INCURSION. And if your cap fails, you will start having problems.
Most small engine systems work on a gravity or siphon fuel feed and need a vented cap.....IN COMES THE WATER!
Ethanol seems to have gotten a boost when it was found that MTBE, from gasoline leaked into the soil, was not being eaten by the bacteria.
NO!
Run the carb dry before storing, Seal the tank with a piece of plastic bag.
pooh-pooh off effects on 2 cycle engines
Only an idiot would run their two-strokes on pump gas.
No I don’t have a snow blower
Well then you don't even know about extreme operating conditions. We have so much rain and snow here it would freak you out. And you can't even keep your gear running in that easy living climate?
You can stick your octane where the sun don’t shine ethanol man.
Sounds like not only do you have trouble understanding basic miscibility and organic chemistry concepts, but you also suffer from some kind of reading comprehension disability.
(Probably too much alcohol)
Raw energy efficiency is rarely the economic driver for energy use and production. Canadian tar sands are a perfect example the EROI for tar sands in nearly break even in some areas. However they are taking massive amounts of cheap natural gas and using it in almost a btu to btu basis to extract and crack bitumen into high value liquid fuels. The value of the liquid fuel is so much more than the value of the natural gas in monetary terms that the industry doesn’t care that the efficiency is low.
Same could drive this process using off peak electricity which in parts of the USA the power company pays consumers to use with negative wholesale rates and turning that essentially free power into a liquid worth $2+ a usgal could at some point make fiscal sense. The efficiency doesn’t matter one bit its cost of input vs final sale price of output.
another group of research has made an electrochemical cell that makes butanol which is not hydrophilic, and not corrosive it has 90% the btu/gal as octane and runs at the same AF lamba as octane so no MIL light when run in a unmodified vehicle. turning surplus power into liquid fuels is more energy dense than batteries one gal of ethanol holds 23kwhr batteries to hold the same amount would weight hundreds of kg. hydrocarbons trump batteries every time.
There are electro-chemical processes for producing ammonia from water and air; and, fuel cells to turn ammonia back into electricity.
My lawnmower is going on 8 years on e10 with no issues.
If you really want to change solar energy and Carbon Dioxide into fuel, I have a great device for you.
It is essentially free, easy to produce, and can be sited almost anywhere.
In fact, I have about a dozen of them standing in my yard right now.
And, every now and then, I use one of them to heat my house for a season. At Christmastime, I use a small one as a decoration in my house, and hang little lights on it.
Unfortunately, the little lights are powered off the grid,,,
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