[Liu, Chang; Li, Feng; Ma, Lai-Peng; Cheng, Hui-Ming] Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Met Res, Shenyang Natl Lab Mat Sci, Shenyang 110016, Peoples R China.;Cheng, HM (reprint author), Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Met Res, Shenyang Natl Lab Mat Sci, 72 Wenhua Rd, Shenyang 110016, Peoples R China;cheng@imr.ac.cn

Advanced Materials for Energy Storage

The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is linked to climate changes; hence there is an urgent need to reduce the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The utilization of CO2 as a raw material in the synthesis of chemicals and liquid energy carriers offers a way to mitigate the increasing CO2 buildup. This review covers six important CO2 transformations namely: chemical transformations, photochemical reductions, chemical and electrochemical reductions, biological conversions, reforming and inorganic transformations. Furthermore, the vast research area of carbon capture and storage is reviewed briefly. This review is intended as an introduction to CO2, its synthetic reactions and their possible role in future CO2 mitigation schemes that has to match the scale of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere, which rapidly approaches 1 teraton.

The teraton challenge. A review of fixation and transformation of carbon dioxide

CO2 conversion covers a wide range of possible application areas from fuels to bulk and commodity chemicals and even to specialty products with biological activity such as pharmaceuticals. In the present review, we discuss selected examples in these areas in a combined analysis of the state-of-the-art of synthetic methodologies and processes with their life cycle assessment. Thereby, we attempted to assess the potential to reduce the environmental footprint in these application fields relative to the current petrochemical value chain. This analysis and discussion differs significantly from a viewpoint on CO2 utilization as a measure for global CO2 mitigation. Whereas the latter focuses on reducing the end-of-pipe problem “CO2 emissions” from todays’ industries, the approach taken here tries to identify opportunities by exploiting a novel feedstock that avoids the utilization of fossil resource in transition toward more sustainable future production. Thus, the motivation to develop CO2-based chemistry does...

Sustainable Conversion of Carbon Dioxide: An Integrated Review of Catalysis and Life Cycle Assessment

Because solar energy is available in large excess relative to current rates of energy consumption,
effective conversion of this renewable yet intermittent resource into a transportable and
dispatchable chemical fuel may ensure the goal of a sustainable energy future. However, low
conversion efficiencies, particularly with CO_2 reduction, as well as utilization of precious
materials have limited the practical generation of solar fuels. By using a solar cavity-receiver
reactor, we combined the oxygen uptake and release capacity of cerium oxide and facile catalysis
at elevated temperatures to thermochemically dissociate CO_2 and H_2O, yielding CO and H_2,
respectively. Stable and rapid generation of fuel was demonstrated over 500 cycles. Solar-to-fuel
efficiencies of 0.7 to 0.8% were achieved and shown to be largely limited by the system scale
and design rather than by chemistry.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/330/6012/1797.full.pdf

Nobuyuki Gokon

Papers

Thermochemical cycles for high-temperature solar hydrogen production.

Thermochemical two-step water splitting by ZrO2-supported NixFe3-xO4 for solar hydrogen production

Thermochemical two-step water-splitting reactor with internally circulating fluidized bed for thermal reduction of ferrite particles

Thermochemical two-step water splitting cycles by monoclinic ZrO2-supported NiFe2O4 and Fe3O4 powders and ceramic foam devices

Preparation of size-controlled (30–100 nm) magnetite nanoparticles for biomedical applications