Skip to content
Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

SUNSHINE CRACKS CARBON DIOXIDE TO MAKE NEW PRODUCTS

Cracking open a CO2 molecule to harvest the carbon to make plastics and other necessary items is routine chemistry. But it takes so much energy, as well as costly rare-earth catalysts, that often it isn’t worth the trouble.
Now engineers at the University of California in Los Angeles have found a way to enlist sunlight to do the work.
The researchers found that the ultraviolet light in sunshine activates molecules of oligophenylene, part of the family of benzene hydrocarbons.
When sunlight hits oligophenylene, the chemical becomes negatively charged. That means it can transfer electrons to nearby CO2 molecules, making them less stable and much easier to break apart into carbon and oxygen.
The engineering team now is working on ways to speed up the process and to use portions of the visible light spectrum to activate the reaction.
TRENDPOST: Humans dump more than 25 billion tons of carbon waste gas into the atmosphere each year; the concentration of carbon in our air has grown 45 percent in less than a century. Finding cheap ways to harvest and re-use CO2 will create new industries that also could help to ease the weather extremes excess carbon in the atmosphere causes.

Comments are closed.