ETHANOL is a valuable liquid hydro-carbon fuel. A recent research finding indicates that it can be produced from water and carbon dioxide, the waste gas from all reactions of combustion. It is a recent outstanding discovery by scientists at the National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, at Tennessee, USA. The principle behind it is based on using the common combustion waste gas carbon dioxide and combining it with water, electro-chemically at the molecular level to produce Ethanol. In principle a super-catalyst (its composition is secret) reacts electro-chemically with water and carbon dioxide to produce Ethanol, a useful and valuable fuel, like kerosene, petrol and octane.
Based on the above principle, Adam Rondinova, one of the lead scientists, was the main researcher to make this astonishing breakthrough at the famous US National Laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tennessee in USA. It was based on progressing research on nano-technology, for developing new types of catalysts that operate on electronic impulse, and known as electro-catalyst that leads and control chemical reaction at molecular levels. This discovery indicates that at the molecular level, chemical reactions tend to move along multiple steps, one after another. This discovery is based on the ability to control and direct a complex chemical reaction that usually generates the molecules of various hydrocarbons. The idea of using electricity to direct and control chemical reactions that can generate molecules of various hydrocarbons is the key principle, behind this procedure of generating Ethanol molecules from molecules of carbon dioxide and water.
Using electricity to enable this conversion, has been the key breakthrough in this case. In simplified terms, the idea was to replace the oxygen molecule from carbon dioxide, and replace it with molecules of hydrogen (COx to CHx), yielding methane, that was an unexpected but pleasant outcome of this investigative research experiment. The idea of controlling electro-chemical reactions enabled the scientists to control the electro-chemical reaction and convert carbon dioxide to Ethanol (C2H5OH). Illustrating it as two molecules of CO2 as C2O4, and adding three water molecules (H6O3), it becomes a molecule of Ethanol (C2H5OH) losing a molecule oxygen (O2).
The conversion efficiency of this reaction, can be broadly stated as follows: "Starting with 100 molecules of carbon dioxide, around 84 molecules will end up as ethanol. Other molecules will be lost as molecules of carbon monoxide, formic acid or methane." According to the researchers, they are currently satisfied with this yield.
(*This write-up is based on an ongoing research project at the Physics department of the US National Laboratories, that was recently published in the current issue of "Popular Mechanics", a US publication)
Engr.S.A.Mansoor
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