Researchers from Brookhaven National Laboratory and Columbia University have proposed a new way to turn carbon emissions into useful material. In their method, carbon dioxide is extracted from the atmosphere and becomes carbon nanofibers, which are hidden for decades in concrete structures as filler for building material. The idea itself is not new, but in this case tandem technology is used, which simplifies and cheapens the process.
In the first step, the mixture of carbon dioxide and water is fed to an electric catalyzer, where it is separated into carbon and hydrogen using a palladium electrode. Both gases are collected in separate containers. The carbon is then fed into a cobalt-nickel alloy thermocatalyst. It is heated to a temperature of only 400° C compared to 1000° C in the classical method, which simplifies the implementation of this process in production.