Sunlight doesn’t make the cut but there are other steps you can take to reduce the risk of passing infection within a household. While others speculate on that, check out the US Centers for Disease Control guidelines for cleaning and disinfecting your home. Speaking of sunlight, there has been plenty of speculation rolling around the Intertubes as to whether or not sunlight kills the COVID-19 coronavirus. More recently the solar-sourced fuel concept has broadened to cover renewable hydrogen.
A few years back CleanTechnica took note of some other developments in the artificial leaf field, including a “bionic” device that can churn out rubbing alcohol. That can go horribly wrong on the commercial side, but things have been popping on the research side. Scaling up the device and achieving commercial viability for solar fuel is a whole ‘nother can of worms. The Berkeley Lab research team makes it clear that they’re taking care of the science part.
YEP ITS WOOD HOW TO
There’s a lot more too it - for example, the new solar fuel system solves another key challenge, which is how to keep the reactions separate.įor all the details on the new solar fuel, look up the study “ Ultrathin Amorphous Silica Membrane Enhances Proton Transfer across Solid‐to‐Solid Interfaces of Stacked Metal Oxide Nanolayers while Blocking Oxygen.” Onward & Upward for Solar Fuel These protons easily flow through to the outer layer, where they combine with carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide now – and methanol in a future step – in a process enabled by a catalyst supported by the titanium dioxide layer.
YEP ITS WOOD FREE
In the inner layer of the tube, energy from sunlight delivered to the cobalt oxide splits water (in the form of moist air that flows through the inside of each tube), producing free protons and oxygen. The new design resolves one key challenge that has been a “thorn in the side” of the solar fuel club, which is how to speed up the flow of protons.Įach nanoscale tube contains a layer of silica embedded with short hydrocarbon chains, which Berkeley Lab describes as “molecular wires.” The wires connect to cobalt oxide inside the tube, and to a silica-titanium dioxide boundary on the outside. The new artificial leaf was created by a research team based at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Where were we? Oh right, billions of nanoscale tubes that generate solar fuel. You never know, maybe the methanol vehicle will make a comeback. Since there is already an extensive, existing infrastructure for methanol and similar liquids, then why not replace fossil methanol with renewable methanol. The wastewater treatment industry also favors methanol for removing excess nutrients from municipal effluent. On the other hand, methanol has a plethora of other uses in the chemical industry. The Energy Department is interested in methanol because it is less expensive and less flammable than gasoline, and it can supplement the domestic fuel pipeline, but since nobody is making methanol cars any more that’s kind of a moot point. Methanol can also be produced from other carbon-based renewable materials. If you were going to make a methanol vehicle for the sparkling green future, then you would want to use a renewable source for your fuel.įor that matter, the original source of methanol is wood, as in wood alcohol. That doesn’t sound too promising, but methanol is commonly produced by steam-reforming natural gas. Methanol use in vehicles has declined dramatically since the early 1990s, and automakers no longer manufacture methanol vehicles in the United States. As an engine fuel, methanol has chemical and physical fuel properties similar to ethanol. Methanol (CH 3OH), also known as wood alcohol, is considered an alternative fuel under the Energy Policy Act of 1992. So many questions! Let’s turn to our friends over at the US Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center for an answer: A sample of the solar fuel tile material, made by atomic layer deposition at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry by Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab Why Solar Fuel? Why Methanol?
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