{"id":283,"date":"2020-02-13T15:36:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T15:36:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/?p=283"},"modified":"2020-02-13T15:36:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T15:36:55","slug":"copper-catalyst-forces-co-workers-carbon-dioxide-and-water-to-work-out-their-differences-and-make-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/2020\/02\/13\/copper-catalyst-forces-co-workers-carbon-dioxide-and-water-to-work-out-their-differences-and-make-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Copper-Catalyst Forces Co-Workers Carbon Dioxide and Water to Work Out their Differences and Make Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone has that coworker they’d rather walk on shattered glass than talk to.\u00a0 For the infamous greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, that coworker is water.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Dwight\"

Much like Dwight from The Office, carbon dioxide has a vendetta against one of the most beloved workers in the office: water. Picture courtesy of Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Now I know what you\u2019re thinking.\u00a0 Who doesn\u2019t like water? Water is the source of all life; it\u2019s a key component in so many things!\u00a0 Well, Carbon Dioxide, much like oil, is hydrophobic, meaning it will not readily mix or react with water.\u00a0 And truth be told, water isn\u2019t particularly fond of carbon dioxide either.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the two of them, their bosses, a team of chemists led by F. Pelayo Garc\u00eda\u00a0de Arquer, made them partners to produce two types of fuel: ethanol and ethylene.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, this didn\u2019t work out at first, and the two refused to cooperate.<\/span><\/p>\n

This led the research team to introduce a mediator to help move the job along: a copper-catalyst.\u00a0 Catalysts increase the rate of chemical reactions, and this copper-catalyst forced force water and carbon dioxide to finally put aside their differences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike carbon dioxide, the copper-catalyst is hydrophilic, meaning it readily absorbs and reacts with water.\u00a0 The copper-catalyst holds onto water\u2019s protons, little nuggets of positively charged energy carbon dioxide needs in order to produce ethanol and ethylene.\u00a0 Thankfully, carbon dioxide finds the copper-catalyst to be a little more palatable than water and readily accepts these protons.\u00a0 Thus, the copper-catalyst acts as a bridge between the two, ensuring that none of them get into trouble with the boss for not doing their work. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"E-85

85% ethanol car fuel.\u00a0 Picture courtesy of Creative Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite two of its components constantly butting heads, this is a relatively simple and cost-effective process that produces high-demand fuels needed for automobiles.\u00a0 However, there are still a few tweaks to work out, such as what temperatures and environments carbon dioxide, water, and the copper-catalyst work best in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, this hesitant partnership has a lot of work to do, but Arquer and his team are optimistic that this reaction may soon lead the charge in the fight for renewable energy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

https:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/367\/6478\/661<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda de Arquer F., Ding C., Ozden A.,\u00a0et. al. <\/em> CO2 electrolysis to multicarbon products at activities greater than 1 A cm\u22122.<\/em> Science 2020. Vol. 367, Issue 6478, pp. 661-666.\u00a0 DOI: 10.1126\/science.aay4217<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone has that coworker they’d rather walk on shattered glass than talk to.\u00a0 For the infamous greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, that coworker is water.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I know what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4279,"featured_media":285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2545],"tags":[19698,7051],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","tag-chemistry","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/writingsciencenews2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}