Made of partially oxidized cobalt layers, the material carries out the conversion with a high level of efficiency.
Certainly it will be a years-long process before this is worked into a successful, commercial equipment.
But at this stage of development, by all conceivable metrics, this reaction looks very positive.
Energy generation, manufacturing processes, transportation, etc.
The new material is a four-atom thick sandwich of cobalt metal and cobalt-oxygen molecules.
As Herkewitz explains, when vibrated with electric current, the material interacts with CO2 molecules running through it.
When that happens, an extra electron is prompted into one of the oxygen atoms in the carbon dioxide.
With that, the CO2 becomes CHOO-, or formate, he says.
To Manthiram, that makes the material the best weve seen by far, he says.
Basically you want to keep that wasted energy as low as possible.
Its very rare and difficult to find a material that satisfies all three of those constraints, he added.
But Im very optimistic, Manthiram says.
source: www.techworm.net
