Transform carbon dioxide into fuels can reduce pollution

The conversations about the state of the Earth's climate often makes us worried, given the changes in the negative direction caused by the man himself seemed uncontrollable.

Various efforts have been undertaken to reduce the rate of damage on the Earth, ranging from creating rules, changing patterns of life, up to create the technology. More recently, scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has been making solar cells that can convert carbon dioxide or CO2 into fuel.

A breakthrough solar cell captures carbon dioxide and sunlight, producing burnable fuel. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1crZSv)

"These new solar cells are not photovoltaic, but photosynthetic," said assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UIC, Amin Salehi-Khojin, as quoted of the International Business Times on Tuesday, August 2, 2016. 

"Instead of producing energy in one unsustainable direction from the fossil fuels to greenhouse gases, we can now reverse the process and recycle carbon in the atmosphere into fuel by using the sunlight," he explained. 

The new solar cells is claimed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, like a tree. According to the UIC website, plantations use a cell as an artificial leaf that can produce an efficient energy of the solid fuel. 

Fuel produced by these cells in the form of synthesis gases, which is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be burned directly or converted into diesel or other hydrocarbon fuels. 

Methods to convert CO2 into a form that can be burned has been there before, but it is considered not efficient and require precious metals such as silver in order to function.

The devices which created by UIC researchers using nano-sized flakes of Tungsten Diselenide, which is a material that is 20 times cheaper than precious metals and 1,000 times as fast as a catalyst in chemical reactions. 

As we all know, CO2 is a greenhouse gas that is damaging because it is in the atmosphere for a long time compared with other gases. It made a significant cause of the heat trapping in the Earth. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES | NEWSMAX]

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