Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing technologies that have the potential to economically convert fossil fuels and biomass into useful products including electricity without emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing technologies that have the potential to economically convert fossil fuels and biomass into useful products including electricity without emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
In the first of two papers published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, the engineers report that they’ve devised a process that transforms shale gas into products such as methanol and gasoline—all while consuming carbon dioxide. This process can also be applied to coal and biomass to produce useful products.
Under certain conditions, the technology consumes all the carbon dioxide it produces plus additional carbon dioxide from an outside source.
In the second paper, they report that they’ve found a way to greatly extend the lifetime of the particles that enable the chemical reaction to transform coal or other fuels to electricity and useful products over a length of time that is useful for commercial operation.
Read more at Ohio State University
Image: L.S. Fan, Distinguished University Professor in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at The Ohio State University, holds samples of materials developed in his laboratory that enable clean energy technologies. (Credit: Photo by Jo McCulty, courtesy of The Ohio State University.)
