Featured

New York City CO2 to Methane via Artificial Photosynthesis

First, folks, an explanation, and a caveat, something of both an apology and an admonition:
If any of you have followed our reports over the past years, you now know, that, beyond doubt, beyond any conceivably sane argument or objection, our abundant United States Coal resources can be efficiently and economically converted into anything, quite literally anything, we now, like docile and blissfully, maybe willfully, unknowing sheep being led into the slaughterhouse staging pens, allow our national and personal wealth to be transferred to the foreign, we dare say alien, treasuries of OPEC to keep ourselves supplied with in the here and now.
More than that, Carbon-recycling and eternally-renewable organic material of botanical origin can be added to the Coal, and be converted into petroleum and natural gas substitutes right along with that Coal, in a way that introduces an element of
sustainability to such conversion processes; in a way which could expand the output of those processes and eventually make the whole enterprise self-sustaining; and, in a way which could open up a whole new arena of opportunity and enterprise for United States Coal Country.
Even more than that, Carbon Dioxide can be efficiently harvested, either from industrial exhaust gases or the atmosphere itself, and then, too, be rather directly converted into conventional hydrocarbons. That one fact alone, that CO2 can be converted into hydrocarbons, is something that has been known in certain, we must presume covetous, circles for at least one full century; since award of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The amount of historical data supporting those claim is, again you will know if you have followed our posts at all over the past half a decade, immense.
And, it has been an immense challenge for us to, first, mine that data, and, then, sift through it, prep it, and deliver the condensed essence of it to you.
One reason we rely so heavily on United States - and, lately, international - Patent documents is because, in one sense, the research data has already been accumulated, organized and refined into much more direct and potent form in those patent documents; and, done so by people no doubt far, far more qualified and better equipped to do all of that than are we. Further, the information is openly, fully displayed and publicly accessible. The technical information embodied in patents and patent applicatios is, as one foreign patent document convention officially has it, "laid open".
That said, as challenging and huge has been the task of mining the body of established science and technology pertaining to Carbon transmutation, keeping even just the appearance of pace in our reportage with newly emerging developments,
given the constraints of our personal resources and available modes of communication, is now proving to be, in the practical sense, impossible.
That "pace", of new Carbon utilization developments, seems, clearly to us, to be accelerating.
And, unless some other folks start accepting the challenge, along with us, of bringing light to bear on those developments, and making them known to the people who most deserve to be fully informed of them, so that they can become more fully involved and profit by them, i.e., the regular United States citizens of United States Coal Country, then poor old Coal Country is going to wind up doing what she seems, forever relegated to the back bleachers, always to have done:
Sucking hind teat.
If that's all pretty much okay by you, if you don't mind continuing on in your subsidizing of Arab sheiks' lavish lifestyles and your overseas military entanglements to keep the oil flowing, if you don't mind paying Cap and Trade Carbon Taxes to finance even more of that nonsense, so be it. Keep on keepin' on in your quiet, stolid, long-suffering way, never telling your news reporters what you really want to be informed of and never letting your political leadership know what it is your really want them to be busying themselves with on your behalf.
And, another half a decade from now, we, all of us, will still be right where we are now; accepting that we aren't worthy of anything more than what people elsewhere in the world want to give us, and acknowledging that our children aren't worthy of anything better than what we ourselves have received.
But, for those of you out there who actually do care, for those of you who do dare to hope and to aspire, we, here, are sorry that we can't yet do more than what it is we have been doing. We'll keep at it for as long as we can, or as long as we don't become so humiliated by our own inadequacies and by our growing sense of desolation that we just throw it all down and wander off into the desert.
In that somewhat less than enthusiastic and inspiring spirit, herein we present further confirmation of one fact concerning Carbon Dioxide that, as in our reports of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development; concerning: "High-Rate Solar Photocatalytic Conversion of CO2 and Water Vapor to Hydrocarbon Fuels; The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane is achieved ... using nitrogen-doped titania nanotube arrays"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | Japan Artificial Photosynthesis Makes Fuels from Carbon Dioxide | Research & Development; concerning: "Recent Advances in the Photocatalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Fuels with Water and/or Hydrogen Using Solar Energy (2012); Chiba University; Japan; Photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to fuels using solar energy is ... reviewed herein. (Titanium dioxide) photocatalytically produced methane";
seems now to be known in certain circles virtually around the world, if not among the deserving and needful public of United States Coal Country, which is:
Certain wavelengths of natural light, through the intercession of some pretty inexpensive catalysts, are capable of converting Carbon Dioxide and Water vapor into Methane.
And, as we see herein, that straightforward fact has again been confirmed; this time in New York City.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to the recent:
"US Patent Application 20120208903 - Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Methane Using Visible Light
Date: August, 2012
Inventor: Harry D. Gafney, NY
Assignee: Research Foundation of City University of New York, NYC
(As can be learned via:
QC Queens College; Inventor Harry D. Gafney is on the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, at the Queens College of the City University of New York.)
Abstract: The invention relates to a method for converting carbon dioxide to methane. The method comprises exposing carbon dioxide adsorbed on a nanoporous silicate matrix to light in the presence of a source of carbon dioxide and a source of hydrogen for a time and under conditions sufficient to convert carbon dioxide to methane.
(As we've explained previously, the "nano" in the above "nanoporous silicate", just means "really small"; with the precise definition of the term being beyond our scope herein. It's widely used in, especially, descriptions of Carbon Dioxide conversion catalysts; it is something that is understood by scientists engaged in those issues; and, it is, as we learn further on, quite achievable as a practical matter.)
Claims: A method for converting carbon dioxide to methane, the method comprising exposing carbon dioxide adsorbed on a nanoporous silicate matrix to light in the presence of a source of carbon dioxide and a source of hydrogen for a time and under conditions sufficient to convert carbon dioxide to methane; wherein the matrix contains at least one photochromic metal oxide ... (and) wherein the photochromic metal oxide entity is a photochromic transition metal oxide, a photochromic bronze, or mixtures thereof.

The method ... wherein the photochromic transition metal oxide ... titanium, tungsten, molybdenum, iron, vanadium, niobium, zinc, or mixtures thereof (as further specified in additional claims).

The method ... wherein (Sodium Group metals are also a part of the catalyst composition).
(There is really nothing too exotic or expensive required in the catalyst composition; it's just that the catalyst composition itself is a little complex.)
The method ... wherein the matrix comprises unpolished Corning code 7930 porous Vycor glass or tetramethoxysilane/methanol/water xerogel.
(Please note that the specified "nanoporous silicate matrix", upon and within which the catalyst is deposited, is, in fact, an available, commercial product: Corning's "7930 porous Vycor glass"; or, as in:
http://www.corning.com/docs/specialtymaterials/pisheets/Vycor%207930.pdf; "VYCOR (R) Brand Porous Glass 7930".)

A method for converting carbon dioxide to methane, the method comprising exposing carbon dioxide adsorbed on a nanoporous silicate matrix to light in the presence of a source of carbon dioxide and a source of hydrogen for a time and under conditions sufficient to convert carbon dioxide to methane ... .
Summary: In one embodiment, the invention relates to a method for converting carbon dioxide to methane. The method comprises exposing carbon dioxide adsorbed on a nanoporous silicate matrix to light in the presence of a source of carbon dioxide and a source of hydrogen for a time and under conditions sufficient to convert carbon dioxide to methane.
Solar energy, e.g., sunlight, is preferred.
Source of Hydrogen: The source of hydrogen for the methods of the present invention can be any suitable source of hydrogen. A preferred source of hydrogen is water. Water is naturally present on the matrices. However, once the naturally-occurring water is depleted, water can be added.

Source of Carbon Dioxide: The source of carbon dioxide for the methods of the present invention can be any suitable source of carbon dioxide. A preferred source of carbon dioxide is ambient environmental carbon dioxide. Another example of a source is carbon dioxide derived from the exhaust of an industrial reaction or operation."
-------------------------
That is the sum of it, although the full Disclosure is far more complex. However, again, the "nanoporous" body of the thing is an available commercial product; the catalyst is - although the formulation of it is, as the full Disclosure reveals, complex - made of available and relatively inexpensive substances; the only energy required, even preferred, is "sunlight"; and, the only raw materials required are Carbon Dioxide "derived from the exhaust of an industrial reaction or operation" and Water.
The product is, simply, Methane.
And, we must remind you, that, once we have the Methane, as herein made in a process powered by nothing but sunlight, from raw materials that consist of nothing but Water and Carbon Dioxide, we can, as seen for only one example in our report of:
react that CO2-derived Methane with even more Carbon Dioxide, and thereby form a "synthesis" "gas consisting chiefly of hydrogen and carbon monoxide"; which gas mixture "may be converted" through known catalytic methods, such as, we submit, the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, "into high quality motor fuels".
Thus, once again, it is demonstrated:
Carbon Dioxide, as "derived from the exhaust of an industrial reaction or operation", is a valuable raw material resource.