This Battery Turns Carbon Dioxide Into Energy

[Spirit of Science]

• Penn State University scientists have discovered a way to build a flow battery that converts carbon dioxide into usable energy
• While this technology might not be commercially available for a long time, it could eventually help to drastically decrease carbon emissions as we move away from fossil fuels

 

Here’s how this inexpensive flow battery works.

 

Flow batteries normally contain two channels of liquid divided by a membrane that prevents them from mixing. In this recent discovery, the scientists placed a sodium bicarbonate and water solution with air on one side, and dissolved CO2 in between manganese oxide electrons on the other. This resulted in a higher concentration of protons on the latter side. The varying concentrations of the positively charged protons, called pH, is what creates the current and generates electricity.

Once the flow cell is discharged, it will recharge by switching each channel’s solution flow. Tests show that this can be done 50 times before with consistent results.

 

 

The Link:

 

 

https://futurism.com/this-battery-can-run-on-carbon-dioxide/

[imatfaal]

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00467

 

Here is the actual article which is a lot less "and then a miracle occurs" than the dreadful write-up on futurism.com

 

The CO2 concentration difference between ambient air and exhaust gases created by combusting fossil fuels is an untapped energy source for producing electricity. One method of capturing this energy is dissolving CO2 gas into water and then converting the produced chemical potential energy into electrical power using an electrochemical system

 

[Endy0816]

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00467

 

Here is the actual article which is a lot less "and then a miracle occurs" than the dreadful write-up on futurism.com

 

TY, I was wondering how that was supposed to work.

[Spirit of Science]

Imatfal

Thanks 4 sharing the article.