Researchers Can Now Turn Atmospheric CO2 Back Into Coal

“Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have managed to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide CO2 from a gas back into solid particles of carbon – ‘coal’,” reports The Independent, “in a breakthrough which could potentially help remove the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.”

Advancements of the school by RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, led scientists to develop a fast and efficient method for transforming carbon dioxide into carbon.
The scientists publish their technology in the journal Nature Communications, claiming a means of cleaning CO2 from the air that could be “safely and permanently” implemented. 

RMIT researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said: “While we can’t literally turn back time, turning carbon dioxide back into coal and burying it back in the ground is a bit like rewinding the emissions clock….” Lead author, Dr Dorna Esrafilzadeh mentioned that the method’s carbon could even be employed as an electrode.

“A side benefit of the process is that the carbon can hold an electrical charge, becoming a supercapacitor, so it could potentially be used as a component in future vehicles,” she said. “The process also produces synthetic fuel as a by-product, which could also have industrial applications.”

“By using liquid metals as a catalyst, we’ve shown it’s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that’s efficient and scalable,”

Daeneke said.

Ecofriendly methods to remove CO2 draw upon compressing the gas into a fluid and then storing it underground. Yet, this method is pricey without subsidies, requires significant energy, and considerable losses can happen if the substance descends from its underground storage block.

It might be possible to eradicate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using economical methods.
Nature Communications, reported this new approach could prevent unwanted leaks and be more sustainable.

The preceding step in the steps toward storage of atmospheric carbon is the research. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from 2018 stated that the worldwide community must acquire 100 billion to 1 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avoid catastrophic global warming. At the moment, only about one percent of carbon emissions are stored in the atmosphere.

Sources: iflscience
Science magazine
Bigthink
Sustainability-times
Thecoli