Producing Graphene from Carbon Dioxide

Turkchem 09 Jan 2020 51 2 dk okuma

TURKCHEM

A research group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) reported an unusual application in the ChemSusChem journal. The researchers are using carbon dioxide as a raw material to produce graphene, a technological material that remains the subject of intensive study. Burning fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum generates energy for electricity, heat and motion, but it increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thus contributes to global warming. Work aimed at breaking this causal chain directs scientists to seek alternative energy sources and simultaneously to find alternative uses for carbon dioxide. One possibility is to view carbon dioxide as a low-cost raw material for the synthesis of valuable materials and potentially to feed it back into a profitable recycling cycle. A natural example can be cited for this: during photosynthesis in plant leaves, a combination of light, water and carbon dioxide creates biomass while closing the natural material cycle. In this process, it is the job of the metal-based enzyme RuBisCO to absorb carbon dioxide from the air and make it available for subsequent chemical reactions in the plant. Inspired by this metal enzyme-based natural transformation, KIT researchers present a process in which greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is directly converted to graphene with hydrogen gas at temperatures up to 1000 degrees Celsius with the aid of specially prepared active metal surfaces. Graphene is a two-dimensional form of the chemical element carbon that possesses electrical properties and is therefore an option for future electronic components. Its discovery in 2004 and its processability led to intensive research worldwide. This discovery earned Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. Geim and Novoselov manually extracted graphene from a graphite block using adhesive tape. Mario Ruben, lead researcher from the Molecular Materials research group at the Nanotechnology Institute (INT) and from the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (AOC) at KIT, states: "If the metal surface has the correct ratio of copper and palladium, the conversion of carbon dioxide to graphene will take place directly in a single step." In further experiments, the researchers were able to produce graphene several layers thick that could be of interest for possible applications in electronic components or filter materials. The research group's next investigation aims to create functioning electronic components from graphene obtained in this way. Carbon materials such as graphene and magnetic molecules could be building blocks for future quantum computers that provide ultra-fast and energy-efficient computing but are not based on the binary logic of today's computers. Carbon dioxide (red-black) and hydrogen (grey) react catalytically on copper-palladium surfaces to form graphene (black). (Image: E. Moreno-Pineda, KIT)