I am writing my PhD proposal on biomass utilization into useful products,through the use of nano catalyst that lower the energy conversion need for the reduction process.please any good suggestion and research idea that will help in achieving this goal is welcome.
Since you're working on nanocataysts, I would recommend the following technology for fuel production from CO2.
The technology is called "Photocatalytic reduction of CO2" into hydrocarbon fuels. It is also called photosynthesis. It is inspired by the natural photosynthesis in plants whereby oxygen (in the air) and carbohydrates are produced from H2O and CO2 using sunlight UV radiation as an energy source. The useful product in this case would be the liquid fuel produced from this photosynthesis process.
Hope this helps answer your question.
Professor Yehia Khalil
Yale University
USA
@Professor Yehia Khalil I upvoted your input, it is really helpful. I will read the suggestions and get back to you as soon as possibile for further inquiry thank you Sir.
The easiest chemical root to producing useful product from CO2 is reaction with H2 to for methanol or Fischer-Tropsch liquids. unfortunately he best way to produce H2 is still Steam-Methane reforming which is energy intensive and produces quite a bit of CO2 as a bi-product so it probably isn't the best route to minimize ghg. I agree with prof Kahlil that biological process are the most sensible current routes. There are also some promising anaerobic processes
This summer I was working with Solid Oxide Electrolyser Cells. They are electrochemical cells based on mixed metal oxides to produce methane and hydrogen through CO2 and H2O coelectrolysis.
The metal oxides composing the cell can be infiltrated with catalyst nanoparticles which improve the cell performance. Studying how to improve these devices through new infiltration strategies might be an interesting research topic as well.
I hope this answer was helpful to you.
Miguel Sanchis
@Miguel Sanchis thank you for your input, but please I need more explaination on "new infliration strategy"
There are different metals that can be used as catalyst so it is required to study the effect of different metals on the cell performance, ie, fuel production. Apart from the kind of metal, the infiltration concentration is another parameter and research to determine the optimal value would be needed.
In a few words, it would be a research focused on testing different material combinations for both the cell electrodes and the infiltrated catalyst.
You can find an article in this research line in the following link: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360319914007277. I hope this clearifies my first answer.
Most effective of method for reducing co2 to useful products is to dissolve it in water.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Physical Phenomena
- Luminescence
- Fluorescence