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					</table><p>Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (<a href="https://www.mit.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MIT</a>) said they have discovered the key to removing carbon dioxide directly from ocean water, which absorbs 30-40% of carbon emissions prevailing in the atmosphere.</p>
<p>The inexpensive method can mitigate Co2 emissions and could potentially lead to overall net negative emissions. The findings were reported in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.</p>
<p>The team came up with a reversible process consisting of membrane-free electrochemical cells. Reactive electrodes were used to release protons to the seawater, driving the release of the dissolved carbon dioxide from the water.</p>
<p>The team said the process is cyclic wherein it first acidifies the water to convert dissolved inorganic bicarbonates to molecular carbon dioxide, which is collected as a gas under vacuum.</p>
<p>Following this, the water is fed to a second set of cells with a reversed voltage, to recover the protons and turn the acidic water back to alkaline before releasing it back into the sea.</p>
<p>Periodically, the roles of the two cells are reversed once one set of electrodes is depleted of protons (during acidification) and the other has been regenerated during alkalization.</p>
<p>The researchers said this removal of carbon dioxide and the reinjection of alkaline water could slowly start to reverse, at least locally, the acidification of the oceans that have been caused by carbon dioxide build-up.</p>
<p>Once the carbon dioxide is removed from the water, it will still need to be disposed of, as with other carbon removal processes.</p>
<p>For instance, it can be buried in deep geologic formations under the sea floor, or it can be chemically converted into a compound like ethanol, which can be used as a transportation fuel, or into other specialty chemicals.</p>
<p>The team said initially the idea would be to couple such systems with existing or planned infrastructure that already processes seawater, such as desalination plants.</p>
<p>Thus carbon dioxide removal could then be a simple add-on to existing processes.</p>
<p>For instance, the system could also be implemented by ships that would process water as they travel, to help mitigate the significant contribution of ship traffic to overall emissions.</p>
<p>There are already international mandates to lower shipping’s emissions, and could help shipping companies offset some of their emissions, and turn ships into ocean scrubbers,” the researchers said.</p>
<p>The system could also be implemented at locations such as offshore drilling platforms, or at aquaculture farms. Eventually, it could lead to the deployment of free-standing carbon removal projects distributed globally.</p>
<p>The process could be more efficient than air-capture systems because the concentration of carbon dioxide in seawater is more than 100 times greater than it is in air, the team asserted.</p>
<p>Currently, the research is continuing and the team expects that the system could be ready for a practical demonstration project within about two years.</p>
<p>Recently, European Union member states and parliamentarians have <a href="https://mercomindia.com/eu-reaches-deal-on-market-reform-to-cut-emissions-by-2030/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> on a major reform to the bloc’s carbon market or emission trading system to reduce emissions and encourage investments in climate-friendly technologies.</p>
<p>In November 2022, government think-tank NITI Aayog’s study found that carbon capture utilization and storage are <a href="https://mercomindia.com/carbon-capture-key-to-and-growth-in-india-niti-aayog/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">key</a> to ensuring sustainable development and growth in India, particularly for producing clean energy<em>.</em></p>
<p>Image: MIT</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Gautamee Hazarika</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Gautamee,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee.</a><br />
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<a href="gautamee@mercomindia.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gautamee@mercomindia.com</a></p>
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<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="102" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">Gautamee</a> is a reporter at Mercom India. Prior to Mercom, Gautamee was working as a multimedia news journalist at ThePrint in New Delhi. She has received her Bachelors in English Honors and Masters in English Literature from St.Stephen&#8217;s College, University of Delhi.<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee</a></div>
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MIT Researchers Find Way to Remove Carbon Dioxide from Seawater


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					</table><p>An international team of researchers led by the <a href="https://www.adelaide.edu.au/front/international.html?adobe_mc_sdid=SDID%3D2980FB92288B94AF-36F70824B11474E8%7CMCORGID%3DBA023B045D5A83160A495E49%40AdobeOrg%7CTS%3D1676266908&amp;adobe_mc_ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Adelaide</a>, Australia said they have successfully split seawater through direct electrolysis without pre-treatment and produced green hydrogen which achieved long-term stability and similar performance to a typical PEM electrolyzer operating in high-purity water.</p>
<p>The researchers said they were able to do this with nearly 100% efficiency, by using a non-precious and cheap catalyst in a commercial electrolyzer.</p>
<p>The team used seawater as a feedstock without the need for any pre-treatment processes like reverse osmosis desolation, purification, or alkanization.</p>
<p>Usually, it is always necessary to treat impure water to a certain level of water purity for conventional electrolyzers including desalination and deionization, which often increases the operation and maintenance cost of the processes.</p>
<p>“Our work provides a solution to directly utilize seawater without pre-treatment systems and alkali addition, which shows similar performance as that of existing metal-based mature pure water electrolyzer,” Associate Professor Yao Zheng, a researcher in the School of Chemical Engineering, said.</p>
<p>The advantage of the discovery is that seawater is an almost infinite resource and is considered a natural feedstock electrolyte. It is even more practical for regions with long coastlines and abundant sunlight.</p>
<p>Zheng said the current electrolyzers are operated with highly purified water electrolytes.</p>
<p>Increased demand for hydrogen can partially or completely replace energy generated by fossil fuels but it also runs the risk of aggravating the existing and increasing crisis of scarcity of freshwater resources.</p>
<p>The researchers concluded that while seawater electrolysis may still be in early development compared with pure water electrolysis because of electrode side reactions, and corrosion arising from the complexities of using seawater, it shows massive potential.</p>
<p>The team said they will work on scaling up the system by using a larger electrolyzer so that it can be used in commercial processes such as hydrogen generation for fuel cells and ammonia synthesis.</p>
<p>Recently, researchers at the École Polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne <a href="https://mercomindia.com/researchers-produce-hydrogen-air-using-solar-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">invented</a> a solar-powered device that is capable of harvesting water from the air for conversion into hydrogen fuel.</p>
<p>In September 2022, a group of researchers at the University of Melbourne <a href="https://mercomindia.com/melbourne-university-researchers-build-device-to-generate-hydrogen-from-air/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developed</a> a way to generate hydrogen directly from the air, eliminating the dependency on freshwater resources and providing a new direction for a carbon-free future.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Gautamee Hazarika</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><div class="designboxt">
<p><img class="alignleft" style="border-radius: 50%;height: 50px;margin-top: -4px;border: 1px solid #00b451" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="50" /></p>
<p><strong style="text-decoration: underline">Gautamee,</strong> Staff reporter at Mercom India<br />
<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee.</a><br />
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<a href="gautamee@mercomindia.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gautamee@mercomindia.com</a></p>
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<div class="authorboxn"><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Picture1.jpg" width="102" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">Gautamee</a> is a reporter at Mercom India. Prior to Mercom, Gautamee was working as a multimedia news journalist at ThePrint in New Delhi. She has received her Bachelors in English Honors and Masters in English Literature from St.Stephen&#8217;s College, University of Delhi.<a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/gautamee-hazarika/" rel="noopener">More articles from Gautamee</a></div>
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Researchers Split Untreated Seawater to Produce Green Hydrogen

<p>Researchers at the <a href="https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Oregon State University College of Engineering</a> have claimed to develop a battery anode based on new zinc and manganese-based nanostructured alloy that could change the way of designing and manufacturing aqueous batteries.</p>
<p>The researchers said aqueous batteries, which utilize the water-based conducting solution as the electrolytes, are an attractive and much safer alternative than lithium-ion batteries.</p>
<p>Electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries are dissolved in organic solvents that are flammable and usually decompose at high operating voltages. Moreover, the growth of lithium dendrite at the electrode-electrolyte interface can cause a short between the electrodes.</p>
<p>In contrast, aqueous electrolytes are environmental-friendly, affordable, capable of fast charging and high-power densities, and highly tolerant of mishandling. However, aqueous batteries&#8217; large-scale use is restrained because of their limited output voltage and low-energy density compared to other battery technologies, the researchers said in a report.</p>
<p><a href="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing.jpg"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24033" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing.jpg" alt="New Nanostructured Alloy Could Revolutionize Aqueous Battery Manufacturing" width="779" height="476" srcset="https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing.jpg 779w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing-300x183.jpg 300w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing-768x469.jpg 768w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing-650x397.jpg 650w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing-624x381.jpg 624w, https://mercomindia.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-Nanostructured-Alloy-Could-Revolutionize-Aqueous-Battery-Manufacturing-600x367.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 779px) 100vw, 779px" /></a></p>
<p>The researchers said that the newly developed battery anode based on new three-dimensional (3D) zinc and manganese-based nanostructured alloy could resolve these issues. The use of zinc could transfer twice as many charges than lithium to improve the battery&#8217;s energy density.</p>
<p>Zhenxing Feng, a chemical engineer and researcher at Oregon State University, explained, &#8220;The use of alloy with its unique nanostructure suppresses dendrite formation by controlling the surface reaction thermodynamics and the reaction kinetics. It also demonstrates super-high stability over thousands of cycles under harsh electrochemical conditions.&#8221;</p>
<p>The researchers also examined the aqueous battery using seawater as the electrolyte instead of high purity deionized water. They said it has the commercial potential for large-scale manufacturing of these batteries.</p>
<p>To trace atomic and chemical changes of the anode in different operation phases, the researchers utilized imaging and x-ray absorption spectroscopy and confirmed the functioning of 3D alloy in a battery.</p>
<p>The researchers stated that theoretical and experimental studies proved that the 3D alloy anode had unprecedented interfacial stability, achieved by a favorable diffusion channel of zinc on the alloy surface.</p>
<p>&#8220;The concept demonstrated in this collaborative work is likely to bring a paradigm shift in the design of high-performance alloy anodes for aqueous and non-aqueous batteries, revolutionizing the battery industry,&#8221; said Feng.</p>
<p>In July 2020, researchers at Stanford University <a href="https://mercomindia.com/stanford-lithium-metal-batteries-evs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">claimed</a> they had developed a new electrolyte design that boosts lithium metal batteries&#8217; performance, increasing the driving range of electric vehicles.</p>
<p>Mercom had <a href="https://mercomindia.com/researchers-electrode-material-lithium-batteries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> in April 2020 that Japanese researchers had developed a new electrode material that was intended to make lithium batteries cheaper, more stable, and capable of holding more charge for longer periods.</p>
<div class="saboxplugin-wrap" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" itemscope itemprop="author"><div class="saboxplugin-tab"><div class="saboxplugin-gravatar"></div><div class="saboxplugin-authorname"><a href="https://cms.mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/" class="vcard author" rel="author"><span class="fn">Harsh Shukla</span></a></div><div class="saboxplugin-desc"><div itemprop="description"><p><img class="alignleft" src="https://mercomindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Harsh-Shukla-293x300-1-new.jpg" width="99" height="102" /><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong style="color: #00b451">Harsh Shukla</strong> </a>is a staff reporter at Mercom India. Previously with Indian Express, he has covered general interest stories. He holds a Masters Degree in Journalism from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune.</p>
<p><a href="https://mercomindia.com/author/harsh-shukla/">More articles from Harsh Shukla.</a></p>
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New Nanostructured Alloy Could Revolutionize Aqueous Battery Manufacturing

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