GT/ Research lights up process for turning CO2 into sustainable fuel
Energy & green technology biweekly vol.67, 29th March — 12ve April
TL;DR
- CO2 transformed into methanol using sunlight and copper atoms on a light-activated material, opening doors for green fuel creation.
- Sun-powered, room temperature CO2 to methanol conversion showcased, employing a two-step process and recyclable organic reagent akin to natural photosynthesis catalysts.
- Energy-efficient carbon conversion technique introduced, utilizing waste from pulp and paper production, reducing energy requirements and environmental waste.
- Semiconductors employed to convert solar energy into high-energy compounds for eco-friendly fuel potential.
- Genetic learning algorithm optimizes blade profiles for vertical-axis wind turbines, increasing resistance to strong winds.
- Magnetic fields enhance electrocatalysis for sustainable fuel production, boosting reactant movement and energy-related reaction efficiency.
- Extreme weather conditions could offer opportunities for increased solar and wind energy capture, potentially offsetting power grid strains during temperature extremes.
- Pairing cryptocurrency mining with green hydrogen production could facilitate wider renewable energy adoption, mitigating carbon-based fuel consumption.
- Enhanced ‘blue energy’ harvesting device captures more wave energy by repositioning electrodes to exploit maximum water force.
- Newly developed plant-based plastic material releases significantly fewer microplastics when exposed to sunlight and seawater compared to conventional plastic.
- And more!
Green Technology Market
Green technology is an applicable combination of advanced tools and solutions to conserve natural resources and environment, minimize or mitigate negative impacts from human activities on the environment, and ensure sustainability development. Green technology is also referred to as clean technology or environmental technology which includes technologies, such as IoT, AI, analytics, blockchain, digital twin, security, and cloud, which collect, integrate, and analyze data from various real-time data sources, such as sensors, cameras, and Global Positioning System (GPS).
Green technology, also known as sustainable technology, protects the environment by using various forms of sustainable energy. Some of the best examples of green technologies include solar panels, LED lighting, wind energy, electric vehicles, vertical farming, and composting.
The global Green Technology and Sustainability market size to grow from USD 11.2 billion in 2020 to USD 36.6 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.6% during the forecast period. The growing consumer and industrial interest for the use of clean energy resources to conserve environment and increasing use of Radio Frequency Identification sensors across industries are driving the adoption of green technology and sustainability solutions and services in the market.
Latest Research
Synergy of Nanocrystalline Carbon Nitride with Cu Single Atom Catalyst Leads to Selective Photocatalytic Reduction of CO2 to Methanol
by Tara M LeMercier, Madasamy Thangamuthu, Emerson C Kohlrausch, et al in Sustainable Energy & Fuels
Researchers have successfully transformed CO2 into methanol by shining sunlight on single atoms of copper deposited on a light-activated material, a discovery that paves the way for creating new green fuels.
An international team of researchers from the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, University of Queensland and University of Ulm have designed a material, made up of copper anchored on nanocrystalline carbon nitride. The copper atoms are nested within the nanocrystalline structure, which allows electrons to move from carbon nitride to CO2, an essential step in the production of methanol from CO2 under the influence of solar irradiation.
In photocatalysis, light is shone on a semiconductor material that excites electrons, enabling them to travel through the material to react with CO2 and water, leading to a variety of useful products, including methanol, which is a green fuel. Despite recent progress, this process suffers from a lack of efficiency and selectivity.
Carbon dioxide is the greatest contributor to global warming. Although, it is possible to convert CO2 to useful products, traditional thermal methods rely on hydrogen sourced from fossil fuels. It is important to develop alternative methods based on photo- and electrocatalysis, taking advantage of the sustainable solar energy and abundance of omnipresent water.
Dr Madasamy Thangamuthu, a research fellow in the School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, who co-led the research team, said: “There is a large variety of different materials used in photocatalysis. It is important that the photocatalyst absorbs light and separates charge carriers with high efficiency. In our approach, we control the material at the nanoscale. We developed a new form of carbon nitride with crystalline nanoscale domains that allow efficient interaction with light as well as sufficient charge separation.”
The researchers devised a process of heating carbon nitride to the required degree of crystallinity, maximising the functional properties of this material for photocatalysis. Using magnetron sputtering, they deposited atomic copper in a solventless process, allowing intimate contact between the semiconductor and metal atoms.
Tara LeMercier, a PhD student who carried out the experimental work at the University of Nottingham, School of Chemistry, said: “We measured the current generated by light and used it as a criterion to judge the quality of the catalyst. Even without copper, the new form of carbon nitride is 44 times more active than traditional carbon nitride. However, to our surprise, the addition of only 1 mg of copper per 1 g of carbon nitride quadrupled this efficiency. Most importantly the selectivity changed from methane, another greenhouse gas, to methanol, a valuable green fuel.”
Professor Andrei Khlobystov, School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, said: “Carbon dioxide valorisation holds the key for achieving the net-zero ambition of the UK. It is vitally important to ensure the sustainability of our catalyst materials for this important reaction. A big advantage of the new catalyst is that it consists of sustainable elements — carbon, nitrogen and copper — all highly abundant on our planet.”
This invention represents a significant step towards a deep understanding of photocatalytic materials in CO2conversion. It opens a pathway for creating highly selective and tuneable catalysts where the desired product could be dialled up by controlling the catalyst at the nanoscale.
Reduction of CO to Methanol with Recyclable Organic Hydrides
by Andressa V. Müller, Shahbaz Ahmad, Jake T. Sirlin, Mehmed Z. Ertem, Dmitry E. Polyansky, David C. Grills, Gerald J. Meyer, Renato N. Sampaio, Javier J. Concepcion in Journal of the American Chemical Society
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) have demonstrated the selective conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) into methanol using a cascade reaction strategy. The two-part process is powered by sunlight, occurs at room temperature and at ambient pressure, and employs a recyclable organic reagent that’s similar to a catalyst found in natural photosynthesis.
“Our approach is an important step toward finding an efficient way to convert CO2, a potent greenhouse gas that poses a significant challenge for humanity, into an easily storable and transportable liquid fuel,” said Brookhaven Lab Senior Chemist Javier Concepcion, a lead author on the study.
The research was conducted as part of the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE), an Energy Innovation Hub based at UNC and funded by the DOE Office of Science.
The room-temperature conversion of CO2 into liquid fuels has been a decades-long quest. Such strategies could help achieve carbon-neutral energy cycles, particularly if the conversion is powered by sunlight. The carbon emitted as CO2 by burning single-carbon fuel molecules such as methanol could essentially be recycled into making new fuel without adding any new carbon to the atmosphere.
Methanol (CH3OH) is a particularly attractive target because it is a liquid that can be easily transported and stored. In addition to its usefulness as a fuel, methanol serves as a key feedstock in the chemical industry for making more complex molecules. Also, because methanol contains just one carbon atom, like CO2, it circumvents the need for making carbon-carbon bonds, which require energy-intensive processes. However, key steps involved in the reactions required to selectively and efficiently generate solar liquid fuels like methanol remain poorly understood.
“Converting CO2 to methanol is very difficult to achieve in a single step. It is energetically akin to climbing a very tall mountain,” Concepcion said. “Even if the valley on the other side is at lower altitude, getting there requires a lot of energy input.”
Instead of trying to tackle the challenge in a single “climb,” the Brookhaven/UNC team used a cascade, or multi-step, strategy that goes through several intermediates that are easier to reach.
“Imagine climbing several smaller mountains instead of a big one — and doing so through several valleys,” Concepion said.
The valleys represent reaction intermediates. But even reaching those valleys can be difficult, requiring the stepwise exchange of electrons and protons among various molecules. To lower the energy requirements of these exchanges, chemists use molecules called catalysts.
“Catalysts enable reaching the next valley through ‘tunnels’ that require less energy than climbing over the mountain,” Concepcion said.
For this study, the team explored reactions employing a class of catalysts called dihydrobenzimidazoles. These are organic hydrides — molecules that have two extra electrons and a proton to “donate” to other molecules. They are inexpensive, their properties can be easily manipulated, and previous studies have shown that they can be recycled, a requirement for a catalytic process. These molecules are similar in structure and function to organic cofactors responsible for carrying and delivering energy in the form of electrons and protons during natural photosynthesis.
“Photosynthesis itself is a cascade of many reaction steps that convert atmospheric CO2, water, and light energy into chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates — namely sugars — that can later be metabolized to fuel the activity of living organisms. Our approach of using biomimetic organic hydrides to catalyze methanol as a liquid fuel can therefore be viewed as an artificial approach to photosynthesis,” said UNC co-lead author Renato Sampaio.
In the study, the chemists broke the conversion of CO2 into methanol into two steps: photochemical reduction of CO2 to carbon monoxide (CO), followed by sequential hydride transfers from dihydrobenzimidazoles to convert the CO into methanol. Their work describes the details of the second step, as the reaction proceeds through a series of intermediates, including a ruthenium-bound carbon monoxide (Ru-CO2+) group, a ruthenium formyl (Ru-CHO+) moiety, a ruthenium hydroxymethyl (Ru-CH2OH+) group, and finally, light-induced methanol release.
While the first two steps of this scheme are “dark reactions,” the third step that results in free methanol is initiated by the absorption of light by the ruthenium hydroxymethyl (Ru-CH2OH+) complex. The proposed mechanism by which this occurs is through an excited-state electron transfer between the Ru-CH2OH+ and a molecule of organic hydride followed rapidly by a ground proton transfer that results in the generation of methanol in solution.
“The ‘one-pot’ and selective nature of this reaction results in the generation of millimolar (mM) concentrations of methanol — the same range of concentrations as the starting materials — and avoids complications that have plagued previous efforts to use inorganic catalysts for these reactions,” said UNC co-author and CHASE Director Gerald Meyer. “This work can therefore be viewed as an important step in the use of renewable organic hydride catalysts to the decades-long quest for room temperature catalytic methanol production from CO2.”
Efficient integration of carbon dioxide reduction and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural oxidation at high current density
by Roger Lin, Haoyan Yang, Hanyu Zheng, Mahdi Salehi, Amirhossein Farzi, Poojan Patel, Xiao Wang, Jiaxun Guo, Kefang Liu, Zhengyuan Gao, Xiaojia Li, Ali Seifitokaldani in RSC Sustainability
Researchers at McGill University have come up with an innovative approach to improve the energy efficiency of carbon conversion, using waste material from pulp and paper production.
The technique they’ve pioneered using the Canadian Light Source at the University of Saskatchewan not only reduces the energy required to convert carbon into useful products, but also reduces overall waste in the environment.
“We are one of the first groups to combine biomass recycling or utilization with CO2 capture,” said Ali Seifitokaldani, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Electrocatalysis for Renewable Energy Production and Conversion. The research team, from McGill’s Electrocatalysis Lab, published their findings.
Capturing carbon emissions is one of the most exciting emerging tools to fight climate change. The biggest challenge is figuring out what to do with the carbon once the emissions have been removed, especially since capturing CO2 can be expensive. The next hurdle is that transforming CO2 into useful products takes energy. Researchers want to make the conversion process as efficient and profitable as possible.
Methyl Termination of p-Type Silicon Enables Selective Photoelectrochemical CO2 Reduction by a Molecular Ruthenium Catalyst
by Gabriella P. Bein, Madison A. Stewart, Eric A. Assaf, Stephen J. Tereniak, Renato N. Sampaio, Alexander J. M. Miller, Jillian L. Dempsey in ACS Energy Letters
Researchers in the UNC-Chapel Hill Chemistry Department are using semiconductors to harvest and convert the sun’s energy into high-energy compounds that have the potential to produce environmentally friendly fuels.
In the paper, the researchers explain how they use a process called methyl termination that uses a simple organic compound of one carbon atom bonded to three hydrogen atoms to modify the surface of silicon, an essential component in solar cells, to improve its performance in converting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide using sunlight.
The research was supported by the Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE), an Energy Innovation Hub funded by the DOE Office of Science, and informed by a process called artificial photosynthesis, which mimics how plants use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into energy-rich molecules. Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. By converting it to carbon monoxide, which is a less harmful greenhouse gas and a building block for more complex fuels, the researchers said they can potentially mitigate the environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
“One challenge with solar energy is that it’s not always available when we have the highest need for it,” said Gabriella Bein, the paper’s first author and a Ph.D. student in chemistry. “Another challenge is that renewable electricity, like that from solar panels, doesn’t directly provide the raw materials needed for making chemicals. Our goal is to store solar power in the form of liquid fuels that can be used later.”
The researchers used a ruthenium molecular catalyst with a piece of chemically modified silicon, called a photoelectrode, that facilitated the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide using light energy without producing unwanted byproducts, such as hydrogen gas, making the process more efficient for converting carbon dioxide into other substances.
Jillian Dempsey, a co-author of the paper and Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor, said that when they ran experiments in a solution filled with carbon dioxide, they found that they could produce carbon monoxide at 87% efficiency, meaning the system using the modified silicon photoelectrodes is comparable or better than systems using traditional metal electrodes, such as gold or platinum.
In addition, the silicon photoelectrode used 460 millivolts less electrical energy to produce a reaction than one would have using only electricity. Dempsey called this significant, because the process uses direct light harvesting to supplement or offset the energy required to drive the chemical reaction that converts carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide.
“What’s interesting is normally silicon surfaces make hydrogen gas instead of carbon monoxide, which makes it harder to produce it from carbon dioxide,” said Dempsey, who is also deputy director of CHASE. “By using this special methyl-terminated silicon surface, we were able to avoid this problem. Modifying the silicon surface makes the process of converting CO2 into carbon monoxide more efficient and selective, which could be really useful for making liquid fuels from sunlight in the future.”
Optimal blade pitch control for enhanced vertical-axis wind turbine performance
by Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Mulleners in Nature Communications
If you imagine an industrial wind turbine, you likely picture the windmill design, technically known as a horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT). But the very first wind turbines, which were developed in the Middle East around the 8th century for grinding grain, were vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWT), meaning they spun perpendicular to the wind, rather than parallel.
Due to their slower rotation speed, VAWTs are less noisy than HAWTs and achieve greater wind energy density, meaning they need less space for the same output both on- and off-shore. The blades are also more wildlife-friendly: because they rotate laterally, rather than slicing down from above, they are easier for birds to avoid.
With these advantages, why are VAWTs largely absent from today’s wind energy market? As Sébastien Le Fouest, a researcher in the School of Engineering Unsteady Flow Diagnostics Lab explains, it comes down to an engineering problem — air flow control — that he believes can be solved with a combination of sensor technology and machine learning. In a paper, Le Fouest and UNFOLD head Karen Mulleners describe two optimal pitch profiles for VAWT blades, which achieve a 200% increase in turbine efficiency and a 77% reduction in structure-threatening vibrations.
“Our study represents, to the best of our knowledge, the first experimental application of a genetic learning algorithm to determine the best pitch for a VAWT blade,” Le Fouest says.
Le Fouest explains that while Europe’s installed wind energy capacity is growing by 19 gigawatts per year, this figure needs to be closer to 30 GW to meet the UN’s 2050 objectives for carbon emissions.
“The barriers to achieving this are not financial, but social and legislative — there is very low public acceptance of wind turbines because of their size and noisiness,” he says.
Despite their advantages in this regard, VAWTs suffer from a serious drawback: they only function well with moderate, continuous air flow. The vertical axis of rotation means that the blades are constantly changing orientation with respect to the wind. A strong gust increases the angle between air flow and blade, forming a vortex in a phenomenon called dynamic stall. These vortices create transient structural loads that the blades cannot withstand.
To tackle this lack of resistance to gusts, the researchers mounted sensors onto an actuating blade shaft to measure the air forces acting on it. By pitching the blade back and forth at different angles, speeds, and amplitudes, they generated series of ‘pitch profiles’. Then, they used a computer to run a genetic algorithm, which performed over 3500 experimental iterations. Like an evolutionary process, the algorithm selected for the most efficient and robust pitch profiles, and recombined their traits to generate new and improved ‘offspring’.
This approach allowed the researchers not only to identify two pitch profile series that contribute to significantly enhanced turbine efficiency and robustness, but also to turn the biggest weakness of VAWTs into a strength.
“Dynamic stall — the same phenomenon that destroys wind turbines — at a smaller scale can actually propel the blade forward. Here, we really use dynamic stall to our advantage by redirecting the blade pitch forward to produce power,” Le Fouest explains. “Most wind turbines angle the force generated by the blades upwards, which does not help the rotation. Changing that angle not only forms a smaller vortex — it simultaneously pushes it away at precisely the right time, which results in a second region of power production downwind.”
Enhancement of electrocatalysis through magnetic field effects on mass transport
by Priscila Vensaus, Yunchang Liang, Jean-Philippe Ansermet, Galo J. A. A. Soler-Illia, Magalí Lingenfelder in Nature Communications
In an era where the quest for sustainable energy sources has become paramount, researchers are tirelessly exploring innovative avenues to enhance fuel production processes. One of the most important tools in converting chemical energy into electrical energy and vice versa is electrocatalysis, which is already used in various green-energy technologies.
Electrocatalysis speeds up electrochemical reactions through the use of catalysts — substances that increase reaction rates without being consumed themselves. Electrocatalysis is fundamental in devices like fuel cells and electrolyzers, where it enables the efficient transformation of fuels such as hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, or water into hydrogen and oxygen, respectively, facilitating a cycle of clean energy.
But the problem is efficiency. Traditional electrocatalysis methods often fall short of maximizing the transport of reactants to the catalyst’s surface, which is a key step in energy conversion. This lowers the reaction’s overall efficiency, and slows down our progress towards clean energy solutions.
Now, scientists led by Magalí Lingenfelder at EPFL have developed a novel approach to track the fundamental processes that enhance the efficiency of clean fuel production. The work focuses on the promising intersection of magnetic fields and electrocatalysis, offering a pathway to more efficient and environmentally friendly fuel production technologies.
The study showed that surrounding the catalysts with magnetic fields create Lorentz forces — the forces that magnetic fields exert on moving electric charges. These in turn induce whirling motions that enhance the movement of reactants and products at the catalyst surface, ensuring a more consistent and rapid reaction but also overcoming the limitations posed by reactant scarcity, a common hurdle in reactions like the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), critical for fuel cells.
To do all this, the researchers had to build a tool for observing the movement of ions in real time under a magnetic field, using an advanced magneto-electrochemical setup. For the actual sophisticated setup, Lingenfelder turned to her office neighbor and spintronics expert, Professor Jean-Philippe Ansermet, who had also studied spin effects in electrochemistry.
“We adapted Jean-Philippe’s electromagnet to measure magnetic field effects on key electrocatalytic reactions for green energy,” she says. “Using a creative trick developed by Priscila and Yunchang [the first authors of the study], we were able to track in situ how ions move in the electrolyte under a magnetic field and to provide a solid ground on how to apply magnetic fields to boost electrocatalysis in a reproducible way.”
By applying magnetic fields to non-magnetic electrodes and monitoring reactions, the scientists were able to decouple the different effects and observe how magnetic forces can stir and enhance the movement of reactants around the catalyst. This process, akin to creating miniature whirlpools, significantly improves the efficiency of reactions crucial for green hydrogen production, offering a promising avenue for advancing sustainable energy technologies.
Is the new method practical? In the study, the scientists show more than a 50% boost in activity for the oxygen reduction reaction induced by magnetic fields on non-magnetic interfaces. This represents a substantial jump in efficiency, but, most importantly, allowed the team to resolve many fundamental controversies in the field by demonstrating the mechanisms and conditions needed for magnetic fields to enhance different electrocatalytic reactions involving gas products or reactants like hydrogen and oxygen.
The study charts the way towards using magnetic fields to improve the efficiency of electrocatalysis that can propel us towards more effective sustainable fuel production. It can revolutionize energy conversion technologies, make fuel cells more widely adopted e.g., in hydrogen vehicles, and increase the production of hydrogen as a clean energy source, also mitigating the impact of our energy consumption on the planet’s climate change.
Enhanced solar and wind potential during widespread temperature extremes across the U.S. interconnected energy grids
by Deepti Singh, Yianna S Bekris, Cassandra D W Rogers, James Doss-Gollin, Ethan D Coffel, Dmitri A Kalashnikov in Environmental Research Letters
Conditions that usually accompany the kind of intense hot and cold weather that strains power grids may also provide greater opportunities to capture solar and wind energy.
A Washington State University-led study found that widespread, extreme temperature events are often accompanied by greater solar radiation and higher wind speeds that could be captured by solar panels and wind turbines. The research, which looked at extensive heat and cold waves across the six interconnected energy grid regions of the U.S. from 1980–2021, also found that every region experienced power outages during these events in the past decade.
The findings, suggest that using more renewable energy at these times could help offset increased power demand as more people and businesses turn on heaters or air conditioners.
“These extreme events are not going away anytime soon. In fact, every region in the U.S. experiences at least one such event nearly every year. We need to be prepared for their risks and ensure that people have reliable access to energy when they need it the most,” said lead author Deepti Singh, a Washington State University climate scientist.”Potentially, we could generate more power from renewable resources precisely when we have widespread extreme events that result in increased energy demand.”
The study showed increased solar energy potential in all six U.S. regions during heat extremes, and in all but one region during cold ones, the area covered by the Texas-run grid. The researchers noted that atmospheric ridges or atmospheric high-pressure systems that cause intense heat, like the heat wave that hit the Pacific Northwest in 2021, are often characterized by cloudless, blue skies. Clear skies allow more of the sun’s radiation to reach the Earth, which could be converted into power by solar panels.
Conditions for wind power were more variable, but at least three regions had increased potential to capture this type of energy during these hot and cold events: the Northeast during widespread cold, and both the Texas grid and a major Midwestern grid during heat waves. For this analysis, Singh and her colleagues used long-term historical climate data along with power outage data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The researchers specifically looked at large heat and cold waves as opposed to localized events because they can impose greater stress across the entire power grid.
Previous research has shown that climate change is changing the characteristics of temperature extremes. Adding to that evidence, this analysis showed that large heat waves are increasing in frequency, particularly across the Western U.S. and Texas grids, rising by 123% and 132% respectively. In the West, they are also increasing in intensity, duration and extent, meaning that they are hotter, last longer and affect a larger area.
On the other hand, cold extremes are declining in frequency yet have remained mostly the same in terms of intensity, duration and extent. A notable example is the costly February 2021 cold wave that blanketed nearly the entire country. The event caused an estimated $24 billion in damage, including multiple days of power outages in Texas, and resulted in 226 deaths, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report. Whether there were outages or not, all regions experience increased energy demand during such temperature extremes, and this strains their power grids, showing a need for alternate solutions.
Expanding solar and wind energy has the potential to improve the resilience of energy systems during extreme events to minimize service disruptions and associated adverse impacts, which are often felt the hardest among vulnerable, overburdened communities, said Singh. In addition to increasing climate resilience of the country’s energy infrastructure, she also pointed out these renewable energy sources have multiple benefits.
“At the very least, solar and wind power do one other major thing: reduce air pollution that is associated with burning fossil fuels and is really bad for our health and the health of our ecosystems,” she said. “Solar and wind are also conducive to having a more distributed energy system. They can be installed closer to communities where they’re used, which can help advance energy equity and access.”
This study identifies only the potential of solar and wind energy to help shore up power grids, the authors noted. More research and development would be needed to increase the resilience of energy grids to climate variability and extremes.
“There is complexity here because we have to think about vulnerabilities in transmission and distribution infrastructure as well as the environmental impact of expanding solar and wind systems, but hopefully these benefits can give us additional reasons to accelerate our transition towards renewable energy,” said Singh. “There are also technological improvements that could help ensure that we can leverage renewable energy when it’s needed. The capacity is there.”
Climate sustainability through a dynamic duo: Green hydrogen and crypto driving energy transition and decarbonization
by Apoorv Lal, Fengqi You in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Pairing cryptocurrency mining — notable for its outsize consumption of carbon-based fuel — with green hydrogen could provide the foundation for wider deployment of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, according to a new Cornell University study.
“Since current cryptocurrency operations now contribute heavily to worldwide carbon emissions, it becomes vital to explore opportunities for harnessing the widespread enthusiasm for cryptocurrency as we move toward a sustainable and a climate-friendly future,” said Fengqi You, professor of energy systems engineering at Cornell. You and doctoral student Apoorv Lal are authors.
Their research shows how linking the use of energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining with green hydrogen technology — the “dynamic duo,” they call it — can boost renewable energy sectors.
“Building a green hydrogen infrastructure to help produce cryptocurrency can accelerate renewable energy and create a more sustainable energy landscape,” Lal said.
Using clean energy sources to power blockchain mining operations and fuel the production of green hydrogen can lead to growing wind and solar capacity — and expand sustainable energy production across the country, the researchers said.
In its current structure, mining blockchain-based cryptocurrency in the U.S. can use as much carbon-based energy as the entire country of Argentina, according to a 2022 White House Office of Science and Technology report. Nearly all domestic crypto-mining electricity is driven by computer power-hungry consensus mechanisms, known as “proof of work,” which is used to verify crypto-assets. Preliminary estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration suggest that 2023 annual electricity consumption for cryptocurrency mining likely represents from 0.6% to 2.3% of all U.S. electricity consumption.
“Acknowledging the substantial energy demands of cryptocurrency mining, our research proposes an innovative technology solution,” You said. “By leveraging cryptocurrencies as virtual energy carriers in tandem with using green hydrogen, we can transform what was once an environmental challenge into a dynamic force for climate mitigation and sustainability.”
In their research, You and Lal examined individual U.S. states to assess potential energy strengths in each region. Supporting cryptocurrency can hasten the building of extra energy infrastructure and potentially create 78.4 megawatt hours of solar power for each Bitcoin mined in New Mexico, for example, and potentially 265.8 megawatt hours of wind power for each Bitcoin mined in Wyoming, according to the paper.
“While cryptocurrency currently has a high dollar value (Bitcoin traded for more than $73,000 on March 13,) you cannot hold it in your hand,” You said. “It’s virtual. Think of cryptocurrency and energy in the same way — much like a gift-card concept. Cryptocurrency also can hold an energy value and that becomes an additional function.”
To advance a sustainable future for blockchain-based cryptocurrency, the researchers said, stronger federal policies for climate goals and renewable energy need to advance.
“Coupled with green hydrogen, this approach to cryptocurrency not only mitigates its own environmental impact, but pioneers a sustainable path for renewable energy transition,” You said. “It’s a novel strategy.”
Space Volume Effect in Tube Liquid–Solid Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Output Performance Enhancement
by Hao Zhang, Guozhang Dai, Yuguang Luo, Tingwei Zheng, Tengxiao Xiongsong, Kai Yin, Junliang Yang in ACS Energy Letters
As any surfer will tell you, waves pack a powerful punch. Now, we are one step closer to capturing the energy behind the ocean’s constant ebb and flow with an improved “blue energy” harvesting device. Researchers report that simply repositioning the electrode — from the center of a see-sawing liquid-filled tube to the end where the water crashes with the most force — dramatically increased the amount of wave energy that could be harvested.
The tube-shaped wave-energy harvesting device improved upon by the researchers is called a liquid-solid triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). The TENG converts mechanical energy into electricity as water sloshes back and forth against the inside of the tube. One reason these devices aren’t yet practical for large-scale applications is their low energy output. Guozhang Dai, Kai Yin, Junliang Yan and colleagues aimed to increase a liquid-solid TENG’s energy harvesting ability by optimizing the location of the energy-collecting electrode.
The researchers used 16-inch clear plastic tubes to create two TENGs. Inside the first device, they placed a copper foil electrode at the center of the tube — the usual location in conventional liquid-solid TENGs. For the new design, they inserted a copper foil electrode at one end of the tube. The researchers then filled the tubes a quarter of the way with water and sealed the ends. A wire connected the electrodes to an external circuit.
Placing both devices on a benchtop rocker moved water back and forth within the tubes and generated electrical currents by converting mechanical energy — the friction from water hitting or sliding against the electrodes — into electricity. Compared to the conventional design, the researchers found that the optimized design increased the device’s conversion of mechanical energy to electrical current 2.4 times. In another experiment, the optimized TENG blinked an array of 35 LEDs on and off as water entered the section of the tube covered by the electrode and then flowed away, respectively. The researchers say these demonstrations lay the foundation for larger scale blue-energy harvesting from ocean waves and show their device’s potential for other applications like wireless underwater signaling communications.
Accelerated fragmentation of two thermoplastics (polylactic acid and polypropylene) into microplastics after UV radiation and seawater immersion
by Zhiyue Niu, Marco Curto, Maelenn Le Gall, Elke Demeyer, Jana Asselman, Colin R Janssen, Hom Nath Dhakal, Peter Davies, Ana Isabel Catarino, Gert Everaert in Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
A newly developed plant-based plastic material releases nine times less microplastics than conventional plastic when exposed to sunlight and seawater, a new study has found.
The research, led by experts from the University of Portsmouth and the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), in Belgium, looked at how two different types of plastic break down when tested in extreme conditions.
A bio-based plastic material made from natural feedstocks held up better when exposed to intense UV light and seawater for 76 days — the equivalent of 24 months of sun exposure in central Europe — than a conventional plastic made from petroleum derivatives.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Hom Dhakal, from the University’s School of Mechanical and Design Engineering, and member of Revolution Plastics said: “Bio-based plastics are gaining interest as alternatives to conventional plastics, but little is known about their potential source of microplastics pollution in the marine environment.
“It’s important to understand how these materials behave when they’re exposed to extreme environments, so we can predict how they’ll work when they’re used in marine applications, like building a boat hull, and what impact they might have on ocean life. “By knowing the effect of different types of plastics on the environment, we can make better choices to protect our oceans.”
“We wanted to look at a conventional industrial polymer, polypropylene, which is non-biodegradable and difficult to recycle, against polylactic acid (PLA), a biodegradable polymer,” Professor Dhakal explained.
“Although our findings show that the PLA released less microplastics, which means using plant-based plastics instead of oil-based ones might seem like a good idea to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean, we need to be careful as microplastics are still clearly being released and that remains a concern.”
The research also found that the size and shape of the tiny plastic pieces released depended on the type of plastic. The conventional plastic released smaller pieces and had fewer fibre-like shapes compared to the plant-based plastic.
Professor Dhakal added: “Overall our research provides valuable insights into the behaviour of different plastic types under environmental stressors, which is important for our future work to tackle plastic pollution. “There is a clear need for continued research and proactive measures to mitigate the impact of microplastics on marine ecosystems.”
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