(February 2, 2016) The
research could one day lead to a sustainable fuel source from greenhouse gas
emissions
They’re making fuel from thin air at the USC Loker
Hydrocarbon Research Institute.
For the first time, researchers there have directly
converted carbon dioxide from the air into methanol at relatively low
temperatures.
The work, led by G.K. Surya Prakash and George Olah of the
USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, is part of a broader effort
to stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by using renewable
energy to transform the greenhouse gas into its combustible cousin – attacking
global warming from two angles simultaneously. Methanol is a clean-burning fuel
for internal combustion engines, a fuel for fuel cells and a raw material used
to produce many petrochemical products.
“We need to learn to manage carbon. That is the future,”
said Prakash, professor of chemistry and director of the USC Loker Hydrocarbon
Research Institute.
The researchers bubbled air through an aqueous solution of
pentaethylenehexamine (or PEHA), adding a catalyst to encourage hydrogen to
latch onto the CO2 under pressure. They then heated the solution, converting 79
percent of the CO2 into methanol. Though mixed with water, the resulting
methanol can be easily distilled, Prakash said.