Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Chemistry => Topic started by: Airthumbs on 13/11/2015 03:19:33
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If this is possible then it would definitely be a bonus. Removing carbon from the air would be a positive use for one of the green house gases.
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well, it's certainly possible... I just don't know if it could be done in any economically viable way (there also won't be much driving force until there are actual uses for graphene, beyond funding research grants and making headlines--I'm sure that day will come, but it ain't here yet)
We have the technology to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, and we have the technology to pull carbonate out of seawater (which then pulls CO2 out of the air), and we can also use carbon from biomass. Then you just have to get the carbon into the right form to deposit graphene from (I believe methane and ethylene are top choices)
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Grow trees. You can make all sorts of useful stuff from wood, or use it as a carbon-neutral fuel.
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The problem that prevented graphene from initially being available for developmental research in commercial uses was that the creation of high quality graphene was a very expensive and complex process (of chemical vapor disposition) that involved the use of toxic chemicals to grow graphene as a monolayer by exposing Platinum, Nickel or Titanium Carbide to ethylene or benzene at high temperatures.
One way to make graphene from sequenced CO2, is by using corn or sugar cane plants to sequester the CO2 and make ethyl alcohol. We will then need to distill the ethanol, maybe using benzene to crack the azeotrope. We then turn the ethyl alcohol into ethylene, which we then react with hot platinum, via chemical vapor disposition. The trace of benzene may not harm anything since this is used as an alternative to ethylene.