ITQ Severo Ochoa Lecture «Revolutionary CO2 Utilization and Storage: Generating H2, Electricity and Carbonates» – Guntae Kim
El lunes 25 de noviembre de 2024 tendrá lugar la charla ITQ Severo Ochoa Lecture «Revolutionary CO2 Utilization and Storage: Generating H2, Electricity and Carbonates» a las 12.00h p.m. en el Salón de Actos del ITQ (UPV-CSIC).
La ITQ Severo Ochoa Lecture la imparte prof. Guntae Kim, Department of Energy Materials and Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (China).
Revolutionary CO2 Utilization and Storage: Generating H2, Electricity, and Carbonates:
Carbon emissions are one of the important factors affecting climate change, and CO2 utilization is considered to be the most important way to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The research team proposed a groundbreaking concept to convert CO2 into value-added chemical and green energy. This system continuously produces electricity and hydrogen through the dissolution of CO2 in a water-based solution in the manner of thermodynamically spontaneous process for the first time. The inspiration comes from the absorption of CO2 by the ocean, which leads to an increase in ocean acidity. The researchers used this concept to «dissolve» CO2 in water to trigger an electrochemical reaction. When acidity rises, the number of protons increases, and they can attract electrons at a high speed.
Through the idea of dissolving CO2 in water and initiating an electrochemical reaction, an efficient Zn-CO2 system was developed, which can generate electricity and hydrogen while consuming CO2. The system has been operating for more than 1000 hours with no detectable degradation. This system is similar to fuel cells, consisting of a cathode (catalysts), a separation membrane (sodium superionic conductor, Nafion), and an anode (Zinc metal). When CO2 is injected into water, the reaction begins, and the conversion rate of CO2 reaches up to 60%. The electricity, hydrogen gas, carbonates and ZnO were produced at the same time. All productions are environmentally-friendly and useful.