IU chemists create molecular 'leaf' that collects and stores solar power without solar panels

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2017/03/carbon-reduction-molecule.shtml

[font face=Serif][font size=5]IU chemists create molecular 'leaf' that collects and stores solar power without solar panels[/font]

[font size=4]The new molecule harvests sunlight to create useable material from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere[/font]

March 8, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

[font size=3]BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An international team of scientists led by Liang-shi Li at Indiana University has achieved a new milestone in the quest to recycle carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere into carbon-neutral fuels and others materials.

The chemists have engineered a molecule that uses light or electricity to convert the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide -- a carbon-neutral fuel source -- more efficiently than any other method of "carbon reduction."

The process is reported today in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"If you can create an efficient enough molecule for this reaction, it will produce energy that is free and storable in the form of fuels," said Li, associate professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Chemistry. "This study is a major leap in that direction."

…[/font][/font]

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. The idea that energy could be collected through chemical means

was an idea being bounced around in the public domain about 10 years ago.

I distinctly remember reading about it and recall that clothing and other materials can be manufactured to collect and transport energy from light based upon the idea that chemical reactions are energy transfer reactions and yield an electrical charge.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. This particular advance is of note, due to its relatively high efficiency

Not because the notion of collecting energy chemically is particularly new.

[NeoGreen]

3. One question...

...is this method "scale-able"?

Is this a test-tube reaction, bench-scale, proof-of-concept field scale and/or production scale?

Many reactions work great in the lab, but out in the field?...not so much...

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. This is research, not a product announcement

…

Next, Li plans to make the molecule more powerful, including making it last longer and survive in a non-liquid form, since solid catalysts are easier to use in the real world. He is also working to replace the rhenium atom in the molecule -- a rare element -- with manganese, a more common and less expensive metal.

…

[NeoGreen]

5. No worries...

...but I have participated in bench scale and then field scale research, published in peer reviewed journals that was all very promising, but not entirely implementable as conceived in the real world.

I made my comment more as a general question whenever promising technologies are reported, not necessarily a critique of this one breakthrough.

I hope it is scale-able, it would be another tool to fight CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere and the consequential climate change that comes along with that.

All good?

[NNadir]

6. This is rhenium chemistry. It's a joke to think its scalable.

Rhenium was the last stable element to be identified because it is so rare.

In theory, it could be in many cases be replaced by the fission product technetium, which has nearly - nearly but not completely - identical chemistry, but in the case where we utilized technetium, we would be embracing nuclear power (as we should) and not need this nonsensical wishful thinking stuff, so called "renewable energy."

The rhenium problem on this planet is very much tied to the combined cycle natural gas industry and the aerospace industry, and it's a huge, if under appreciated, problem. Modern technology very much depends on super alloys, many of which depend on access to rhenium, which will not be available for very much longer.

The idea of squandering rhenium on so called "renewable energy" is absurd. This technology, as written, would have a hard time powering Des Moines, Iowa, never mind the world. In fact, the solar industry has consistently failed to become significant throughout its history. It's not significant now. It won't ever be significant, all of the university press releases in the world notwithstanding.

I wrote about the technetium "solution" elsewhere: Technetium: Dangerous Nuclear Energy Waste or Essential Strategic Resource?