Tech
Carbon Dioxide From Exhaust Fumes Used to Make New Chemicals
Staff Reporter
First Posted: Feb 12, 2014 11:54 PM EST
To stop global warming, most governments are advocating reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (COâ‚‚), a greenhouse gas, put into the atmosphere. But some argue that such action won’t be enough – we will need to remove COâ‚‚ already present.
By Jessica Breen, University of Leeds
The reduction of COâ‚‚ is a big challenge, as it requires large amounts of renewable energy. Until then, short-term solutions to remove COâ‚‚ from fossil fuel power plants is becoming necessary, including carbon capture and storage (CCS). The other option is to use the storage part, as new research from Korea shows, and to use COâ‚‚ directly from exhaust gases to make new chemicals.
Catch me if you can
Carbon capture involves the “capture” of COâ‚‚, either by a chemical or physical process. Often COâ‚‚ from a exhaust gas stream is captured by nitrogen containing compounds called amines. The reaction results in the formation of solid chemicals. These can be heated, allowing the COâ‚‚ to be released, which can then be compressed, transported and stored in geological features, such as depleted oil fields, or used as raw material in chemical factories.
Although trees and some microbes can capture COâ‚‚ and use it as fuel, humans have struggled to replicate the process on a large scale. Most chemical reactions involving COâ‚‚ require expensive catalysts, high temperatures, or high pressures to make it react. The most common use of COâ‚‚ as a chemical feedstock is in the formation of urea, which is found in around 90% of the world’s fertilisers.
In the new research, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Soon Hong and colleagues from the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea have caught COâ‚‚ from exhaust gas and used it for many reactions that make useful chemicals. One type is called alkynyl carboxylic acid, which has many uses such as making food additives. The other, cyclic carbonate, is used to make polymers for cars and electronics. Cyclic carbonates can also be used in place of phosgene, which is a very reactive and highly toxic chemical that is used as a starting material to make a wide variety of useful products.
Hong also used highly pure COâ‚‚, which is sold at a high price and required lots of energy to make, in the same chemical reactions and found there was hardly any difference in the final yield (the amount of product formed minus wastage).
Use me if you do
Like CCS technologies, Hong passes exhaust fumes through a solution of amines, where COâ‚‚ is captured and other gases pass unreacted. Then the resulting salt is heated to yield pure COâ‚‚ for chemical reactions. Hong can recycle the amine solution at least 55 times without loss in yield.
In another research paper just published in Nature Communications, Matthias Beller and colleagues at the University of Rostock in Germany show a new reaction that can use COâ‚‚. The reaction is called alkene carbonylation, and it usually required the use of carbon monoxide (CO), which, as home detectors know well, is a highly toxic and flammable gas.
COâ‚‚ has previously been used in the synthesis of carboxylic acids by using diethylzinc as one of the drivers of the reaction. But diethylzinc is flammable in air. Using the reaction Beller can make chemicals are found in varnishes and paints. The researchers carried out a number of reactions but most importantly confirmed that the source of the newly formed C-O bond was COâ‚‚. This work shows COâ‚‚ can be used as a viable alternative to carbon monoxide in carbonylation reactions and increasing the importance of COâ‚‚ in the chemical industry.
While this is good news, these advances don’t offset the energy needed to trap and use COâ‚‚. They will help increase the demand of COâ‚‚ at industrial scale, and may then drive CCS and renewable energy technologies to become cheaper.
Jessica Breen receives funding from the Technology Strategy Board.
See Now:
NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone
TagsCarbon Dioxide This article was originally published at The Conversation.
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First Posted: Feb 12, 2014 11:54 PM EST
To stop global warming, most governments are advocating reducing the amount of carbon dioxide (COâ‚‚), a greenhouse gas, put into the atmosphere. But some argue that such action won’t be enough – we will need to remove COâ‚‚ already present.
By Jessica Breen, University of Leeds
The reduction of COâ‚‚ is a big challenge, as it requires large amounts of renewable energy. Until then, short-term solutions to remove COâ‚‚ from fossil fuel power plants is becoming necessary, including carbon capture and storage (CCS). The other option is to use the storage part, as new research from Korea shows, and to use COâ‚‚ directly from exhaust gases to make new chemicals.
Catch me if you can
Carbon capture involves the “capture” of COâ‚‚, either by a chemical or physical process. Often COâ‚‚ from a exhaust gas stream is captured by nitrogen containing compounds called amines. The reaction results in the formation of solid chemicals. These can be heated, allowing the COâ‚‚ to be released, which can then be compressed, transported and stored in geological features, such as depleted oil fields, or used as raw material in chemical factories.
Although trees and some microbes can capture COâ‚‚ and use it as fuel, humans have struggled to replicate the process on a large scale. Most chemical reactions involving COâ‚‚ require expensive catalysts, high temperatures, or high pressures to make it react. The most common use of COâ‚‚ as a chemical feedstock is in the formation of urea, which is found in around 90% of the world’s fertilisers.
In the new research, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Soon Hong and colleagues from the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea have caught COâ‚‚ from exhaust gas and used it for many reactions that make useful chemicals. One type is called alkynyl carboxylic acid, which has many uses such as making food additives. The other, cyclic carbonate, is used to make polymers for cars and electronics. Cyclic carbonates can also be used in place of phosgene, which is a very reactive and highly toxic chemical that is used as a starting material to make a wide variety of useful products.
Hong also used highly pure COâ‚‚, which is sold at a high price and required lots of energy to make, in the same chemical reactions and found there was hardly any difference in the final yield (the amount of product formed minus wastage).
Use me if you do
Like CCS technologies, Hong passes exhaust fumes through a solution of amines, where COâ‚‚ is captured and other gases pass unreacted. Then the resulting salt is heated to yield pure COâ‚‚ for chemical reactions. Hong can recycle the amine solution at least 55 times without loss in yield.
In another research paper just published in Nature Communications, Matthias Beller and colleagues at the University of Rostock in Germany show a new reaction that can use COâ‚‚. The reaction is called alkene carbonylation, and it usually required the use of carbon monoxide (CO), which, as home detectors know well, is a highly toxic and flammable gas.
COâ‚‚ has previously been used in the synthesis of carboxylic acids by using diethylzinc as one of the drivers of the reaction. But diethylzinc is flammable in air. Using the reaction Beller can make chemicals are found in varnishes and paints. The researchers carried out a number of reactions but most importantly confirmed that the source of the newly formed C-O bond was COâ‚‚. This work shows COâ‚‚ can be used as a viable alternative to carbon monoxide in carbonylation reactions and increasing the importance of COâ‚‚ in the chemical industry.
While this is good news, these advances don’t offset the energy needed to trap and use COâ‚‚. They will help increase the demand of COâ‚‚ at industrial scale, and may then drive CCS and renewable energy technologies to become cheaper.
Jessica Breen receives funding from the Technology Strategy Board.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone