Scientists convert C02 into Methanol

[JumpinJackFlash]

Yesterday scientists in Singapore discovered how to turn the abundant greenhouse gas C02 into the clean burning biofuel methanol.

Now you're probably wondering: "But Mac, how did they do that?" Well to be honest I don't understand every single word in the article but I got the basic idea so here's the quote on how they do it:

Quote:

At the IBN, scientists have been able to make carbon dioxide react with a stable organocatalyst called N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) under mild conditions in dry air. “NHCs have shown tremendous potential for activating and fixing carbon dioxide,"says Siti Nurhanna Riduan, senior lab officer at IBN. "Our work can contribute towards transforming excess carbon dioxide in the environment into useful products, such as methanol.”
A combination of silica and hydrogen – called hydrosilane – is added to the NHC-activated carbon dioxide, which is transformed into methanol through hydrolysis. "Hydrosilane provides hydrogen, which bonds with carbon dioxide in a reduction reaction. This carbon dioxide reduction is efficiently catalyzed by NHCs even at room temperature. Methanol can be easily obtained from the product of the carbon dioxide reaction," explains Dr Yugen Zhang, IBN team leader and principal research scientist...

Now the question is: Will this end the controversy of the theory of global warming? Probably not, but it's cool isn't it?

Oh and here's the article: http://www.gizmag.com/research-carbo...ethanol/11483/

[Asi]

It sounds like the hydrosilane is being used up in the reaction. I can't find much about hydrosilane on the internet, but it's probably too expensive to produce for this to be useful.
Still, it's interesting.

[Staybeautiful]

It's impressive (*chemistry geeking!*), but you would want to know a)the yield, b)energy required to manufacture hydrosilane. Also when they say "dry air" they mean "bake the crap out of any surface/gas that comes into contact with the catalyst at high temperature for long periods of time" which isn't trivial because otherwise you kill the catalyst. You need to take the energy needed for that into account. All in all, there are shinier ways of carbon capture.