US Person does not really care if Joe Munchkin becomes an independent, other than the fact he would be less deceptive.* The Democratic Caucus does not have his vote now when it needs it the most, so nothing would really change. Rewarding disloyalty seems to be peculiarity of the hide-bound Senate.
Since it appears we will be stuck with combustion as a means of producing energy, means to burn fossil fuels while emitting less carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere is of paramount importance. Australia is a huge coal producer that is number one on the list of coal exporting countries. In 2020 the country exported $32.7 billion worth of coal. This industry is a major sector of the economy. Its conservative government has expressed continued support for coal extraction and burning. But Australian scientists think they have a solution to the dilemma.
Researchers have struggled to find an economically viable way to eliminate or reduce carbon dioxide gas from the combustion process. US Person wrote in a previous post {20.10.21}, sequestration and storage of carbon waste is expensive and the technology problematic. The kernel of the problem is the stability of the CO₂ molecule under normal conditions. Its decomposition temperature is 2000C and it is used in industry as an inert gas to blanket volatile reactions or products.
One way to activate the carbon dioxide molecule for reactive purposes is to expend energy to cause it to ionize. This is what researchers have done using sound waves to agitate carbon dioxide molecules that come in contact with the rare metal Gallium. Gallium is #31 in the Periodic Table, close to aluminum and zinc. Gallium has unusual properties. At STP it is a soft, silvery metal but it has a very low melting point. It will melt in your hand due to body heat being above its melting point of about 86F. It alloys easily with many metals. Since it was first isolated in 1875 by French chemist Boisbaudran using spectroscopy, its use has been primarily as an alternative for mercury in themometrics and as a metal alloy. Today, its primary use is in the semiconductor industry.
The researchers in Australia who published their results in the leading journal, Advanced Materials, have found a new and important use for the strange metal. Using a relatively small amount of electricity (230kWh per ton of CO₂ which costs about $28 in the US) and liquid gallium as a catalyst, they were able to obtain a 92% efficiency rate for converting CO₂ into oxygen and a carbon compound, graphene oxide, that has commercial value of about $800 a gram! Here is a basic schematic of what is going on in the reaction at the molecular level:
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| credit: Daily Kos |
Droplets of Ga are suspended in a liquid solution capable of dissolving a lot of carbon dioxide. Silver fluoride salts are added and the mix agitated by sound waves. Gallium forms tiny rod shaped crystals of silver-gallium spontaneously. When these rods came into contact with gallium nanoparticles, a charge differential is created across a thin layer of gallium oxide on the surface at the contact point (area A). Voilá, a tiny circuit is formed in which electrons flow to the end of the rod crystal where they come into contact with carbon dioxide to form negative CO₂ ions. These react with other carbon dioxide molecules to form oxygen and graphene oxide. This process is sustainable and the catalysts--silver-gallium crystals and liquid gallium--remain intact.
The researchers tested waste flue gas, which is not entirely carbon dioxide, and observed similar conversion results (it also contains sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulates). Of course this process has yet to be proven at commercial scale, but development is continuing. But wait, you say, what about that gallium? You said its rare, so is this just another environmental disaster waiting to happen? Gallium does not appear as a free element in the Earth's crust. It is a trace element of metallic ores of zinc and aluminum. Gallium is produced as a by-product of bauxite mining primarily. USGS estimates that about 1 million tons of the metal exists in known reserves of aluminum and zinc ores, In 2017 the world produced about 320 tons of refined gallium. Not a lot, but perhaps a enough for use as a catalyst to reduce planet-wrecking carbon dioxide pollution.
* Mother Jones reports about Munchkin: "In the current electoral cycle, Manchin has received more in political donations from the oil and gas industry than any other senator, more than double the second largest recipient. He is also the No 1 beneficiary of donations from the coal mining sector, leads the way in money accepted from gas pipeline operators, and is sixth in the ranking of senatorial donations from electricity utilities." If you ask US Person, he is an embarrassment.