Argonne and SLAC will develop artificial photosynthesis methods to enable direct air capture of CO2 while energy sources are expanded through the conversion of CO2 to fuels and other useful chemicals.
Leaves make it look simple but capture and use carbon dioxide (CO)2) from the air is a difficult process for scientists to imitate.
Artificially capture CO2Chemists have developed methods of “scrubbing” it out of the air with chemicals that react very favorably to it. But even after ingestion, it is often difficult to release and use for artificial photosynthesis.
The US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory (DOE) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will receive $ 4.5 million from the DOE over a three-year period for research aimed at capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air and through artificial photosynthesis to convert them into useful products.
“We were thrilled to have the opportunity to do new science and work on this challenge. It would be hugely rewarding to open up a new, environmentally friendly means of generating energy. A big step forward in this area would be the highlight of my career. “- – Ksenija Glusac, Argonne chemist, Solar Energy Conversion Group, Chemical Sciences and Engineering Department
CO2 Upon detection, the gas is captured, transported to a storage location and isolated. Argonne and SLAC will jointly focus on developing photochemical methods that enable CO2 The acquisition takes place directly from the air and combines this acquisition with the photochemical conversion into fuels and chemicals with added value.
Their goal is to improve the environment and expand energy sources by converting CO2 to fuels and other value-added chemicals such as methanol and acrylic acid Derivatives – both are used by the chemical industry to make polymers, including resins, plastics, and adhesives. Methanol can also be used as a fuel to generate electricity.
Ksenija Glusac, a chemist with the Solar Energy Conversion group in Chemical Sciences and Engineering at Argonne, will lead Argonne’s efforts as principal researcher for the group.
Glusac has been in the field of artificial photosynthesis since 2000, but combines CO2 Photosynthesis capture is a new direction for you and your team.
“We were thrilled to have the opportunity to do new science and work on this challenge,” said Glusac, who is also an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It would be hugely rewarding to open up a new, environmentally friendly means of generating energy.”
The Glusac team has already made a significant contribution to artificial photosynthesis. After years of studying the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation, they expanded scientists’ understanding of what happens in materials in relation to the absorption of light – and the conversion of that light into energy.
“The current project builds on our extensive experience and opens up the possibility of combining CO2 Capture with photosynthesis, ”said Glusac.
Glusac and her team plan to use Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), and SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) – all user facilities of the DOE Office of Science – to collect X-ray absorption and scattering Measurements for a better understanding of the CO2 Capture and photo conversion mechanisms.
The APS’s high-energy storage ring generates ultra-light, hard X-rays for research in almost all scientific disciplines, while SSRL delivers electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray, ultraviolet, visible and infrared range, which is generated by electrons circulating in a storage ring. LCLS takes X-ray snapshots of atoms and molecules at work and provides details on atomic resolution on ultra-fast time scales to reveal fundamental processes in materials, technology and living things.
Glusac and her team will carry out these measurements on samples of supramolecular structures MOFs (organometallic scaffolds) that can absorb and harvest sunlight, and nodes that contain two types of catalysts: reduction catalysts that can trap CO2 from the air and reduce them to value-added chemicals and oxidation catalysts that can convert water into oxygen.
“Our approach aims to combine CO2 Capture and artificial photosynthesis in a single process called photoreactive capture, ”said Glusac. “We’re going to study molecular photoreactors that can both scrub CO2 and use sunlight to turn it into useful chemicals. We have great hope in this endeavor. ”
Argonne’s Computing Resource Center Laboratory is used to conduct computational studies of CO2 Acquisition and conversion mechanisms.
In addition to Glusac, Argonne’s team also includes Lin Chen, David Kaphan, Karen Mulfort, Alex Martinson, David Tiede and Peter Zapol. Amy Cordones-Hahn from SLAC rounds off the group.
The projects were selected through peer review and supported by the DOE Office of Science.