An Energy Paper published on the 7th in the journal Nature and Communications in the United Kingdom said scientists demonstrated a new way to use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into methane, a way to produce fuel with greenhouse gases, or to provide humans with a Sustainable Energy The sun's thermal radiation is clean and sustainable, but storing it is difficult because the battery has limited storage capacity and life.
So the researchers suggest that using the energy of the sun to produce fuel is a viable solution.
This time, a team of scientists from the Korea Institute of Basic Sciences established a new system that uses solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into methane, first used by zinc oxide, a mineral commonly found in physical sunscreens, The principle of UV absorption and scattering, the electron can accept the energy in UV transition, and when the particle size of the material is much smaller than the wavelength of ultraviolet light, it can be in its role in the UV light scattering in all directions. The use of zinc oxide After effectively transferring the solar energy, the researchers added copper oxide crystals that began to flow when the sunlight was on the mixture.In carbonated water (including carbon dioxide), these charges propelled a complex chemical reaction to successfully remove carbon dioxide Converted to 99% purity methane.
Although such a transformation was also achieved before, there are many pitfalls in previous attempts, such as the need for rare and expensive materials to generate chemical reactions or the resulting fuels are not as easy to use as methane.
The authors conclude that storing solar energy in methane gas will allow the material to provide more energy per unit mass than conventional batteries, and it is still possible to optimize the conversion process in the future, and the current findings provide a better understanding of this The various elements required for performance.