Cobalt Could Unlock the Future of Sustainable Energy | Alternative Energy | Forums

hope this isn't vaporware out of china

Cobalt, everyone's favorite blue magnetic chemical element, can now help save the world.

As described in a study in the journal Nature, a team of scientists developed a microscopically thin material made of cobalt to convert carbon dioxide gas into a clean-burning fuel called formate. Essentially, they're taking the same stuff that causes a 60-degree day in January and turning it into an energy source. 

What's more, that material, made of cobalt metal and cobalt-oxygen molecules, is only four atoms thick. For scale, a typical atom's radius is one tenth of a billionth of a meter.

The team, led by Shan Gao from the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences in Hefei, China, used a process called electroreduction to move a small electric current through the superthin cobalt material, changing the carbon dioxide's makeup and producing the new clean energy source.

With a pulse of electricity, a hydrogen atom attaches to the CO2's carbon molecule, and an electron is added to the carbon dioxide. So now you have carbon, hydrogen and two oxygen molecules: CHOO, the compound for formate.

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