High-Level Project Summary
We give Earth the superpower to fix CO2 to Methanol and water through a reaction with hydrogen gas with 100% efficiency. This methanol is burned as fuel, producing water and CO2 to be fixed again to methanol in an infinite loop. The water generates electricity. Our practical solution uses the same scientific idea of fixing CO2 and CO to methanol fuel. The CO2 gas used is captured either from car exhausts and factories' fumes or directly from the atmosphere. The fixation reaction is done under specific high temperatures and pressure. This solution provides us with fuel, stabilizes Earth’s CO2 percentage, and provides us with a continuous source of water and hydropower.
Link to Project "Demo"
Link to Final Project
Detailed Project Description
Our Project consists of mainly two parts; carbon capturing and Carbon fixation. It introduces new technologies to perform the processes less costly and more efficiently than ever.
For the carbon fixation, our idea is turning the earth’s natural process “carbon fixation” into superpower "Carbon fixation to methanol", keeping in mind that the process of burning methanol regenerates CO2 which will, in turn, regenerate methanol, making it an abundant source of fuel. In addition, both the process of carbon fixation into methanol and combustion of methanol provides water vapor, that can be used to move turbines to generate electricity and can be then condensed into liquid water that can be drunk. The idea is all about making a source of energy that will be endless, by reducing the dangerous effect of CO and CO2. It happens by reacting both CO2 and CO with Hydrogen to produce Methanol (CH3OH) and water vapor. The reaction needs a temperature of about 493-573 k and a pressure of about 5-10 MPa. With these parameters in mind, having them is costly, not to mention that high efficiency is almost impossible. Therefore, the superpower we chose is that earth can do that process continuously with high efficiency.
The principal reactions that occur in the synthesis of methanol from CO/CO2/H2 mixtures are the following:
CO-to-Methanol: CO + 2H2 ⇄ CH3OH , Energy Required: ∆H0 = −91.0 kJ/mol
CO2-to-Methanol: CO2 + 3H2 ⇄ CH3OH + H2O , Energy Required: ∆H0 = −49.8 kJ/mol
Also, using Methanol produces Carbon dioxide again, and the balanced chemical reaction for this reaction is:
CH3OH + 3/2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O
This is an endless loop as every 1 mole of CO2/CO can be converted to 1 mole of Methanol and vise verse. Producing H2O (steam) in all reactions will be used to rotate turbines, which drives a generator that produces electricity “Energy” and will be then condensed into fresh water for water-scarce areas.
For carbon Capturing, We describe a process for capturing CO2 from the atmosphere in an industrial plant. The design captures CO2 in a continuous process using an aqueous KOH sorbent coupled to a calcium caustic recovery loop.
Space Agency Data
The space agency data inspired our idea for the challenge. We noticed significant changes in carbon dioxide gas percentage in the atmosphere from the data. We also noticed an alarmingly high rate of reducing ice area and increasing sea level. The same source showed evidence and effects of that crisis including acidity of the water and natural disasters. This information inspired us to develop a solution for the problem of the increase in carbon dioxide that solves the world fuel crisis as well. We used the data also to define the problem in our presentation and specify its size and challenges.
Hackathon Journey
We were inspired to choose this challenge from the current situation of global warming that causes wildfires and melting icebergs. Our solution for the challenge needed interactive presentations to be well delivered. To achieve this our team had to learn to make presentations using PREZI software. We learned video editing techniques to make a good demo for our solution. We faced a little setback during the hackathon because we had to finish a large part of the presentation in the last few hours as we were off schedule but we managed the situation well. Our overall experience during the hackathon was wonderful!
References
Software:
Microsoft Powerpoint
Prezi
Wondershare Filmora
Resources:
https://climate.nasa.gov/
https://cms.qut.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/549892/SLCSubject-Supplement-Lesson-6-Final.pdf
https://www.bnl.gov/isd/documents/88700.pdf
https://www.optience.com/sitefiles/rex/examples/MethanolSynthesis.pdf
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2010/cp/c001484b
Tags
#GlobalWarming #Fuel #CarbonCapturing
Global Judging
This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.