(Yicai) Nov. 3 — Chinese scientists have discovered a way to greatly cut carbon emissions during the production of liquid fuel hydrocarbons, such as gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel, opening up a new path for advancing green energy and moving closer to the country\u2019s carbon neutrality goals.<\/p>\n
The research team led by Wen Xiaodong from the Chinese Academy of Sciences\u2019 Institute of Coal Chemistry and Ma Ding from Peking University has found a way to block carbon dioxide emissions during the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process, according to a study published in Science on Oct. 30. Although the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process has been around for over a century, this by-product has long hindered its large-scale commercial use.<\/p>\n
The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process converts synthesis gas, which is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, into liquid hydrocarbons or other high-value olefins that can be used as fuels after passing over a catalyst. When iron-based catalysts are used, carbon monoxide tends to react with water to produce carbon dioxide as a by-product. This not only results in high carbon emissions but also reduces the yield of the target product.<\/p>\n
To tackle this, the research team found that adding a trace amount of halogen compounds into the reaction gas could significantly alter how the iron catalyst reacts. This tweak to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process nearly eliminates carbon dioxide generation and greatly boosts the efficiency of producing liquid fuel hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n
Feeding 20 parts per million of bromomethane over an iron carbide catalyst reduced carbon dioxide selectivity to less than 1 percent and hiked olefin selectivity to around 85 percent of all carbon-based products, the report said.<\/p>\n
The research team is now working with industry partners to run pilot tests and assess long-term stability, with the aim of industrializing this low-carbon method, the People\u2019s Daily reported on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith wider adoption, this technology could significantly accelerate the green transformation of China\u2019s coal chemical industry and offer a Chinese solution for optimizing the global energy structure,\u201d Ma said.<\/p>\n
Editor: Kim Taylor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Yicai) Nov. 3 — Chinese scientists have discovered a way to greatly cut carbon emissions during the production…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,152920,152919,128],"class_list":["post-259622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-carbon-emission","tag-fischer-tropsch-synthesis","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}