文章大意:本文为一篇说明文。文章介绍了皇家墨尔本理工大学领导的研究小组开发了一种新技术,可以有效地将二氧化碳气体转化为固体碳颗粒,通过这个技术转化二氧化碳的原理和意义、用途。
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Researchers have used liquid metals to turn carbon dioxide back into solid coal, in a world-first breakthrough that could transform our 11 to carbon capture and storage.
The research team led by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a new technique that can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon.
Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers a(n) 12 pathway for safely and permanently removing the greenhouse gas from our atmosphere.
Current technologies for carbon capture and storage focus on compressing CO2 into a liquid form, transporting it to a suitable site and injecting it underground.
But 13 has been hindered (阻碍) by engineering challenges, issues around economic feasibility and environmental concerns about possible 14 from the storage sites.
RMIT researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said converting CO2 into a solid could be a more sustainable approach. “While we can’t 15 turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock,” Daeneke, an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, said.
“To 16 , CO2 has only been converted into a solid at extremely high temperatures, making it industrially unfeasible.” By using liquid metals as a catalyst, we’ve shown it’s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that’s efficient and scalable. While more research needs to be done, it's a crucial first step to delivering solid storage of carbon.”
How the carbon conversion works
Lead author, Dr Dorna Esrafilzadeh, a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in RMIT’s School of Engineering, developed the electrochemical technique to capture and convert atmospheric CO2 to storable solid carbon.
To convert CO2, the researchers designed a liquid metal catalyst with specific surface 17 that made it extremely efficient at conducting electricity while chemically activating the surface. The carbon dioxide is dissolved (溶解) in a beaker (无柄塑料杯) filled with an electrolyte liquid and a small amount of the liquid metal, which is then charged with an electrical 18 .
The CO2 slowly converts into solid flakes of carbon, which are naturally detached (脱离) from the liquid metal surface, allowing the continuous production of carbonaceous solid. Esrafilzadeh said the carbon produced could also be used as an electrode.
“A side benefit of the process is that the carbon can hold electrical charge, becoming a supercapacitor (电容器), so it could 19 be used as a component in future vehicles. The process also produces synthetic fuel as a by-product, which could also have industrial 20 .”