German Merkur
Large power plants are still mining fuels such as coal, which produces carbon dioxide. Researchers have now managed to use it to produce fuel methane
In the future, can we convert greenhouse gas such as carbon dioxide into fuel for heating or power generation? According to Chinese researchers, this is possible.
Federal Prime Minister Olaf Scholz went to Arabian Peninsula to solve the problem of natural gas shortage that currently causes the price of German natural gas soaring.
During this period, the RWE Group signed a contract to import 137,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which will help Germany get rid of its dependence on Russian gas.
LNG currently appears to be widely traded as a more environmentally friendly alternative than traditional natural gas, and some owners of biogas plants even want to convert their biogas into biolurgical natural gas.
According to NDR, whether liquefied natural gas, which is mainly composed of methane, is more climate-friendly, depends largely on how it is produced. Scientists from China have now developed a new method of producing methane—using sunlight to extract from carbon dioxide.
By the way: Olaf Scholz had to listen to some interesting comments about planting trees during his trip to the Bay Area.
carbon dioxide fuel: Chinese research team made photocatalyst from gold
In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a Chinese research team led by Cheng Hefeng from Shandong University of Jinan demonstrated a photocatalyst based on isolated gold atoms that can be used to convert carbon dioxide into methane fuel with the help of sunlight. This discovery is so special because it may be a step towards climate neutralization, thus a step towards mitigating the greenhouse effect and the energy crisis. This is urgently needed because, for example, one must completely avoid a car to achieve the goal of 1.5 degrees.
What is special about catalyst is that single gold atoms are always gathered together using traditional preparation methods, so the team developed a new strategy.
Due to its special electronic structure, single-atom catalyst behaves differently from traditional metal nanoparticles. In this catalyst, a single gold atom is immobilized on an ultra-thin zinc indium sulfide nanolayer and reacts with CO2 to form carbon monoxide (CO), methanol (CH3OH), methane (CH4), and other carbon and hydrocarbon compounds.
What is fuel?
The German Geothermal Association defines fuel as a chemical substance whose stored energy can be converted into available energy by combustion. There are solid, liquid and gaseous fuels, which can be natural, refined or synthetic, depending on how they are made. Organic fuels are oil, natural gas or coal—inorganic fuels are hydrogen, methane or carbon monoxide.
Fossil fuels (coal, natural gas) are also different from fuels from renewable raw materials (such as wood, biofuels, biogas).
On the other hand, nuclear fuel (such as plutonium) does not belong to fossil fuels. They release energy in nuclear power plants through nuclear fission . Compared with coal-fired power plants, nuclear fission has a better carbon dioxide balance capacity.
