Engineers develop an efficient process to make fuel from carbon dioxide.
The top left shows a household powered by the direct formate fuel cell, with formate fuel stored in the underground tank.
Credit: Shuhan Miao, Harvard Graduate School of Design × close A schematic shows the formate process.
Now, researchers at MIT and Harvard University have developed an efficient process that can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a liquid or solid material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity.
Other approaches to converting carbon dioxide into fuel, Li explains, usually involve a two-stage process: First the gas is chemically captured and turned into a solid form as calcium carbonate, then later that material is heated to drive off the carbon dioxide and convert it to a fuel feedstock such as carbon monoxide.
The team also built a fuel cell specifically optimized for the use of this formate fuel to produce electricity. »
