New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air

ScienceNOW h/t Beyond the Black

excerpts:

• Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air.
• As easily recoverable fossil fuels become scarce in the decades to come, he suggests that society could harvest atmospheric CO2 and combine it with hydrogen stripped from water to generate a methanol fuel for myriad uses. [ Comment: perhaps a way could be found to harvest carbon dioxide and make methanol useful for hydrogen fuel cells, that appears to be an idea springing from this]
• They turned to polyethylenimine (PEI), a cheap polymer that is a decent CO2 absorber.
• Once saturated with CO2, the PEI-silica combo is easy to regenerate. [Comment:  this may be useful in grabbing carbon dioxide in space and then regenerate it when you want to reuse it and the carbon dioxide]
• The polymer also degrades at high temperatures ...  To overcome that limitation, Prakash says the USC team is now working to produce high surface-area PEIs that are better at taking the heat. [ Comment: perhaps a way to cool down its environment so that it doesn't degrade]

Comment:

Hydrogen combined with carbon dioxide can make methanol, which can be used to carry the hydrogen for use in fuel cells.  So, this may be a way to recycle carbon dioxide as an energy carrier.

For example, when reforming methanol in order to make hydrogen, you need to collect the carbon dioxide.  This is a method that can store the carbon dioxide until it can be regenerated and recycled back into methanol.  It will close the carbon dioxide loop.

In order to obtain the hydrogen for making methanol, you can use this recently discovered catalyst.

A speculative notion of how this may work in practice:

1. A large forest of these artificial trees made with this CO2 sucker could harvest the carbon from the atmosphere.  This could work at the sea because it needs to be in a humid place.
2. Secondly, you could use the sea as a source for water so as to split it for use as hydrogen.  The catalyst mentioned above could be used to make the hydrogen thusly obtained more economical.
3. An energy source would still be necessary in order to make the hydrogen. Thorium would work nicely.
4. Combine the hydrogen and carbon dioxide and make methanol, aka Sabatier Reaction.
5. Ship the methanol to distribution locations, where it is electrolyzed or reformed back into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.  The sucker could store the carbon again for future reuse.
6. The hydrogen could work in fuel cells, which would make water and electricity.
7. The carbon and water loops could be closed.
8. Although the energy source could be nuclear as in the Thorium cycle, this also could be made to work with non nuclear sources of energy, such as solar.

Update:

Or the energy source in #3 above could be a cold fusion cell, like the Rossi E-cat.