In The Field

ACS Washington 2009: fire and gas

Today DC is much more alive and crazy with chemists than yesterday, and the chaos was exacerbated by a mid-morning fire alarm that evacuated the convention center. Chemists (and journalists) spilled out onto the sidewalks and milled about aimlessly; some took it as a smoke break, a few awkwardly typed on the laptops that were teetering on their palms. Carmen Drahl at the C&EN blog captured the mayhem on video. Alas, it was a false alarm (apparently the second one of the conference — maybe some expo exhibits getting out of hand?) and five minutes later the chem fest continued.

I started the day learning about carbon dioxide reforming — converting CO2 and hydrocarbons into something useful, rather than stowing it away under the ground or ocean.

Chang-jun Liu from Tianjin University in China focused on CO2 reforming of methane, which produces synthesis gas or syngas, a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. This can then be used like natural gas to power turbines, converted into liquid fuel or as a hydrogen source for fuel cells.

Liu’s trying to make the process more efficient by improving upon nickel catalysts. These are cheaper than the more popular noble metal catalysts and are quite active, but the problem is they’re easily deactivated by carbon deposits that choke up the reaction.

To make nickel less vulnerable to carbon deposits, Liu described a room temp plasma treatment that created super small particles — less than 10 nanometers. Due to their new size and structure, these catalysts resisted deposit formation and remained reactive, giving this cheaper alternative a possible future in CO2 reforming.

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