Though functioning designs for artificial photosynthesis and other CO2 recycling and/or replacement mechanisms already exist they are very complex and can only be used by major corporations. Is there a way to adapt them to potentially see a significant difference regarding the CO2 levels in our atmosphere than if it was being used by a small amount of factories and other alternative energy plant.

 

 

 

My method for website and source collection was to first of all select what exactly I was looking for within the source. When I found a seemingly reliable source I would immediately compare it to other sources making sure that the data was reliable as well as looking to see if the author had a bias. When reliability was confirmed I immediately put the source into my bibliography and then continued the research. My method for constructing the adaptation aspects of each of the designs that I will soon show you was to first of all look into each aspect of the designs. Looking into every detail and mechanism within these larger machines allowed me to not only gain a better understanding of how the designs work but also allowed me to understand what exactly was the problem holding us back from already looking into making simpler versions of these designs. When this was completed I would research different alternatives to each aspect and then select one or two to incorporate into my slides by looking into the following variables: Price, reliability, efficiency, and safety. For instance if I found out that strapping a nuclear reactor to somebody’s roof was the most efficient and cost effective way to do whatever that would be something that I would dismiss immediately. 

 

Report on Artificial photosynthesis: A diamond in the rough

 

 

Design 1, artificial photosynthesis:

First, artificial photosynthesis. Why don't we start off with how this design works.This design replicates a plants process of intaking CO2 and using sunlight to turn it into sugars using only solar panels and microbes. The process starts by using the solar panels to turn sunlight into electricity. Next the electric current is used to break down stable CO2 and H2O molecules turning them into their more reactive counterparts, CO (carbon monoxide) and H2 (hydrogen). The chemicals are bubbled into a tank introducing them to bacteria. These bacteria break the chemicals down and reconstruct them as useful alcohols, butanol (C4H10O) and hexanol (C6H14O). These alcohols can be used in everything from industrial solvents to artificial flavoring. The interesting thing about these alcohols is that they can also be used as a fuel source since they are made of CO2. They would still release small amounts of CO2 but significantly less than fossil fuels. Another upside of this design is that the system is modular meaning that depending on the bacteria they will release different chemicals such as ethanol (C2H6O) which is already being used in major fuel sources as well as acetate (C2H3O2) which is being used in many household products such as cosmetics and cleaning products. All of these chemicals are represented in Fig. 2. This explanation does not include every detail and there are many other variables involved such as that the type of bacteria determines the product.

For the adaptation portion. The major disadvantage about this design is that although the process is very simple it would achieve the highest level of efficiency being conducted at large scales and having the results shipped to the general public in their already processed form. A major advantage about this design is that the resources needed such as solar panels already exist at large scales and would simply need to be slightly adapted to fit the needs of this mechanism. Research from other sources has also proven that this design is economically viable.

Since most if not all of the chemicals produced through this process are carbon dioxide based they can be used as fuel sources. This may seem insignificant considering that these fuel sources would still release CO2 but trust me when I say that this could revolutionize the fuel industry. This sounds like an overstatement but this process creates fuel from CO2 that is already compatible with most vehicles while still creating a smaller carbon footprint. Some cars such as the Toyota Innova Hycross. 

Design 2: MOXIE:

The next design is MOXIE. This is an example of a solid oxide electrolyser cell that was put in the Perseverance rover sent out by NASA on July 30, 2020. To help visualize this it is technically a fuel cell or in this case a hydrogen fuel cell that runs in reverse. A hydrogen fuel cell uses hydrogen and oxygen to create electricity and water. This mechanism does the reverse using water and electricity to create hydrogen and oxygen. On Mars it isn't exactly easy to get access to water. For that you would need to drive the rover to the ice caps, mine them, and then find a way to melt the ice. Instead this mechanism uses another source of oxygen, carbon-dioxide. This isn't  a very in depth explanation to this absolutely genius design so why don't I offer one up.

First the mostly carbon dioxide gas is put through a scroll compressor that brings it to 1 atm (atmospheric pressure). Next it is brought into a preheater that brings the gas to approximately 800 degrees celsius. Now this seems unnecessarily hot and energy consuming but it is important to remember that carbon dioxide is just two oxygen molecules attached to one carbon atom. This temperature is required to separate the oxygen molecules from the carbon atom. This hot air is then sent through the solid oxide electrolyzer also known as SOXE, the part that separates the molecules. This part has an approximate efficiency of 30%-50%(it converts 30 to 50 percent). This process converts carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide as well as oxygen. When separated these molecules have different charges like the sides of a magnet. The oxygen molecules become negatively charged which means that if we were to place an opposing (positive) charge close to the molecules they would be attracted to it removing them from the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide which would go out through an exhaust pipe.  

A common question regarding the extraction of the oxygen molecules is “Why don't the carbon dioxide and monoxide molecules go through the oxygen port?”. The answer is that they do, but before the oxygen is released it is put through a filter made of a special type of ceramic, scandia stabilized zirconia. You can actually buy it online for about 735$ per 150 grams. Relatively cheap. But the real question is how does a powder filter out different molecules. The answer is simpler than you might think. The simplest way to describe it is that it is a filter or strainer that only allows oxygen molecules and/or atoms to pass through. 

A common misconception is that it acts like a strainer being porous and only allowing oxygen molecules and atoms to pass through through different sizes and/or weight when in reality it behaves more like a structure or material. In this case it proves to be very useful to allow only oxygen molecules to go through a vent where it will be sent through an anode region where it will be collected. When exiting the vent the oxygen atoms will naturally bond to each other creating oxygen.

A major disadvantage regarding this mechanism is the efficiency. This makes sense considering that for only most CO2 molecules we would be able to extract a single oxygen atom. A common theory for how we could improve the efficiency of this mechanism would be to bring the heat up in the preheater increasing the efficiency of the oxygen extraction methods and also being able to potentially get two oxygen atoms from each CO2 molecule. This sounds great on paper until you realize that this would be like hitting a self-destruct button. Surprisingly enough the heat wouldn't be the problem in this situation but the product of the oxygen extraction. When you remove only one oxygen molecule the byproduct is carbon monoxide which is a gas but if you were to remove two oxygen atoms then all of a sudden the byproduct would be carbon also known as soot. This would cause a soot build up in the system blocking key mechanisms and eventually destroying the entire system.

A major obstacle when it comes to adapting this technology is that unless it is exposed to concentrated carbon dioxide the system is just wasting energy on oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Luckily a CO2 collection mechanism even with a low efficiency rate could be installed into rooms of a house with a high CO2 ppm rate and could still be effective. The wonderful thing about trying to reimagine this mechanism is that in the MOXIE experiment the most energy consuming part of the entire mechanism is the scroll compressor. On earth it could be replaced by a smaller significantly less powerful compressor of sorts. Just for reference the MOXIE experiment as a whole cost 50 million dollars when the cheapest CO2 compressor that I could find was around 40 dollars.

In reality the preheater is just another method to put the CO2 in a vulnerable state in which it can be broken down with little to no effort. Though it is possible this would be very energy consuming and could pose a potential threat to households due to having such high heat. This mechanism could be replaced with an electric current like in the last design or with a catalyst that would cause a chemical reaction breaking down the molecules and having them rearranged into C and O2 or CO and O. As long as the molecules have weak enough bonds to be separated and converted in the solid oxide electrolyzer they would work relatively well. 

Next is the solid oxide electrolyser or SOXE. In this case a solid oxide electrolyzer would work well but is a relatively new technology and can be very expensive but there are alternatives such as an alkaline and proton exchange membrane (PEM). An alkaline electrolyzer is typically used to split water molecules to achieve an eco-friendly way to get hydrogen but the same basic mechanism could be applied to splitting carbon dioxide molecules. The mechanism operates through the transportation of hydroxide ions from the cathode to the anode through the difference in charge that can split the molecules. The great thing about this design is that this is an older technology that has been well developed, is usually less expensive and energy intensive, as well as being able to split molecules of lower concentration but it could face potential problems with splitting CO2 instead of H2O. The other is the PEM or proton exchange membrane. This design works through the transportation of hydrogen ions (protons) allowing whichever molecules you are trying to split to react with the anode. The advantage of the PEM electrolyzer is that it can already be used to separate oxygen molecules. 

Sadly I doubt that you could replace the positive charge and scandia stabilized zirconia duo while keeping the same level of efficiency. Luckily this mechanism is easy to execute and wouldn't be excessively cost or energy consuming. This could be executed through a simple battery mechanism. All that matters in this situation is that you have some sort of mechanism that can attract oxygen atoms. One major alternative is solid hydrogen. Hydrogen is typically visualized as a gas but some major corporations such as FuelCellsWorks have been creating designs to use solid hydrogen in batteries. The great thing about solid hydrogen is that all hydrogen no matter the form has a slight positive charge. This attracts oxygen atoms and theoretically because it is in a solid form they wouldn't bond and create water. Sadly I struggled to find a decent alternative to the scandia stabilized zirconia so this general region would need to stay the same although this mechanism and use of the powder is already genius and I see no reason to change it other than potential cost issues with such an expensive material. The reason why I have included such a significantly larger amount of text for this portion was because I see much more potential in this design when trying to fulfill this objective.

 

 

 

Due to this project being formatted as more of a literature review project I have created no new data. All information that I have collected is included in the research section.

 

In conclusion although these designs are based in the hypothetical with a lot of work advancing and potentially prototyping these designs they could offer another solution to climate change. These designs could help us see significant improvements in everything from CO2 released from ethanol production to CO2 ppm within our atmosphere. Referring to MOXIE design this is not the first time that something from NASA and different space programs has been used on Earth. Examples of this would be memory foam, freeze dried food, and even grooved roads on intersections that were originally designed to help the space shuttle land. This research is just the beginning and with the contribution of others could make a change for the better in this world.

 

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First and foremost I would like to thank my immediate family members for supporting me and helping me with editing this project. I would also like to thank my uncle, Fabrizio Chiacchia for providing me with the necessary information on the oil and gas industry that was very helpful in preparing this project. Last but not least I would like to thank Mme Girard for helping me manage this project and gave the time needed to complete this project.