Scientists have found a way to take everyone's least favorite greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, and mix it with water to create alcohol.
A research team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee developed a way to convert carbon dioxide into ethanol—and they did it by accident. Originally, they were hoping to convert carbon dioxide that had been dissolved in water to methanol, a chemical released naturally by volcanic gases and microbes, which can cause blindness in humans if ingested.
But instead of methanol, they discovered they had ethanol, a primary component of gin and also a potential fuel source. Surprised, the team realized that not only was their new material converting the carbon dioxide to ethanol, it needed very little outside support.
The material is a small chip—about a square centimeter in size—covered in spikes, each just a few atoms across. Each spike is constructed out of nitrogen with a carbon sheath and a small sphere of copper embedded in each tip. The chip is dipped into water and carbon dioxide is bubbled in. The copper acts as a small lightning rod, attracting electricity and driving the first steps of the conversion of the carbon dioxide and water into ethanol, before the molecules move to the carbon sheath to finish the process.
