{"id":358104,"date":"2022-03-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?post_type=selected&p=358104"},"modified":"2022-03-01T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T13:00:00","slug":"new-nature-inspired-concepts-for-turning-co2-into-clean-fuels","status":"publish","type":"selected","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/selected\/new-nature-inspired-concepts-for-turning-co2-into-clean-fuels\/","title":{"rendered":"New, nature-inspired concepts for turning CO2 into clean fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed an efficient concept to turn carbon dioxide into clean, sustainable fuels, without any unwanted by-products or waste, as announced in a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers have previously shown that biological catalysts, or enzymes, can produce fuels cleanly using renewable energy sources, but at low efficiency. Their latest research has improved fuel production efficiency by 18 times in a laboratory setting, demonstrating that polluting carbon emissions can be turned into green fuels efficiently without any wasted energy. The results are reported in two related papers in Nature Chemistry and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most methods for converting CO2<\/sub> into fuel also produce unwanted by-products, such as hydrogen. Scientists can alter the chemical conditions to minimize hydrogen production, but this also reduces the performance for CO2<\/sub> conversion: so cleaner fuel can be produced but at the cost of efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cambridge-developed proof of concept relies on enzymes isolated from bacteria to power the chemical reactions which convert CO2<\/sub> into fuel, a process called electrolysis. Enzymes are more efficient than other catalysts, such as gold, but they are highly sensitive to their local chemical environment. If the local environment isn\u2019t exactly right, the enzymes fall apart and the chemical reactions are slow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooperation with Portuguese University<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Cambridge researchers, working with a team from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, have developed a method to improve the efficiency of electrolysis by fine-tuning the solution conditions to alter the local environment of the enzymes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnzymes have evolved over millions of years to be extremely efficient and selective, and they\u2019re great for fuel-production because there aren\u2019t any unwanted by-products,\u201d said Dr. Esther Edwardes Moore from Cambridge\u2019s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, first author of the PNAS paper. \u201cHowever, enzyme sensitivity throws up a different set of challenges. Our method accounts for this sensitivity so that the local environment is adjusted to match the enzyme\u2019s ideal working conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers used computational methods to design a system to improve the electrolysis of CO2<\/sub>. Using the enzyme-based system, the level of fuel production increased by 18 times compared to the current benchmark solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No by-products<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To improve the local environment further, the team showed how two enzymes can work together, one producing fuel and the other controlling the environment. They found that by adding another enzyme, it sped up the reactions, both increasing efficiency and reducing unwanted by-products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe ended up with just the fuel we wanted, with no side-products and only marginal energy losses, producing clean fuels at maximum efficiency,\u201d said Dr Sam Cobb, first author of the Nature Chemistry paper. \u201cBy taking our inspiration from biology, it will help us develop better synthetic catalyst systems, which is what we\u2019ll need if we\u2019re going to deploy CO2<\/sub> electrolysis at a large scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cElectrolysis has a big part to play in reducing carbon emissions,\u201d said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research. \u201cInstead of capturing and storing CO2<\/sub>, which is incredibly energy-intensive, we have demonstrated a new concept to capture carbon and make something useful from it in an energy-efficient way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers say that the secret to more efficient CO2<\/sub> electrolysis lies in the catalysts. There have been big improvements in the development of synthetic catalysts in recent years, but they still fall short of the enzymes used in this work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Improved electrolysis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce you manage to make better catalysts, many of the problems with CO2<\/sub> electrolysis just disappear,\u201d said Cobb. \u201cWe\u2019re showing the scientific community that once we can produce catalysts of the future, we\u2019ll be able to do away with many of the compromises currently being made, since what we learn from enzymes can be transferred to synthetic catalysts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce we designed the concept, the improvement in performance was startling,\u201d said Edwardes Moore. \u201cI was worried we\u2019d spend years trying to understand what was going on at the molecular level, but once we truly appreciated the influence of the local environment, it evolved really quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn future we want to use what we have learned to tackle some challenging problems that the current state-of-the-art catalysts struggle with, such as using CO2<\/sub> straight from air as these are conditions where the properties of enzymes as ideal catalysts can really shine,\u201d said Cobb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John\u2019s College, Cambridge. Sam Cobb is a Research Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. Esther Edwardes Moore completed her PhD with Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also interesting: Improving carbon capture and storage<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1730,"featured_media":358105,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[33854,9158,31379],"location":[65764,55977],"internal_archives":[],"class_list":["post-358104","selected","type-selected","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-clean-energy","tag-energy-transition","location-portugal-nl","location-united-kingdom"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/pEWrMS1A-pexels-chris-leboutillier-929382-scaled-1.jpg","coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/brenda-arnold\/","display_name":"Brenda Arnold"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on March 1, 2022","modified":"Updated on March 1, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on March 1, 2022 2:00 pm","modified":"Updated on March 1, 2022 2:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Photo by Chris LeBoutillier from Pexels","tax_additional":{"category":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"],"slug":"category","name":"Categories"},"post_tag":{"linked":["carbon dioxide<\/a>","Clean energy<\/a>","energy transition<\/a>"],"unlinked":["carbon dioxide<\/span>","Clean energy<\/span>","energy transition<\/span>"],"slug":"post_tag","name":"Tags"},"language":{"linked":["EN<\/a>"],"unlinked":["EN<\/span>"],"slug":"language","name":"Tags"},"post_translations":{"linked":["pll_621e11673e089<\/a>"],"unlinked":["pll_621e11673e089<\/span>"],"slug":"post_translations","name":""},"location":{"linked":["Portugal<\/a>","United Kingdom<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Portugal<\/span>","United Kingdom<\/span>"],"slug":"location","name":"Locations"},"internal_archives":{"linked":[],"unlinked":[],"slug":"internal_archives","name":"Internal Archives"}},"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected\/358104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/selected"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/selected"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358104"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=358104"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=358104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}