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Economical way to turn captured carbon into clean fuel developed by Waterloo researchers

Economical way to turn captured carbon into clean fuel developed by Waterloo researchers

Researchers at the University of Waterloo say they have made a historic breakthrough when it comes to being able to capture carbon and turn it into sustainable, clean fuel in a way that’s economically viable.

Yimin Wu is a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the university and also the Tang Family Chair in New Energy Materials and Sustainability.

He says he and the researchers had three goals in their work:

  1. To mitigate carbon dioxide emissions, typically from industrial and transportation sources, that cause climate change.
  2. To make decarbonization financially feasible.
  3. Incorporate renewable electricity to develop new material for zero-emission transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks for industry.

Wu explained the findings to Craig Norris, host of CBC Kitchener-Waterloo’s The Morning Edition.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Craig Norris: Explain for us, in the simplest terms, what exactly you’ve done here.

Yimin Wu: So we developed

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Fuel cell technology can be made much more efficient thanks to immersion in caffeine, much like myself and the rest of the planet

Fuel cell technology can be made much more efficient thanks to immersion in caffeine, much like myself and the rest of the planet

Fuel cells are one of those technological developments, a bit like nuclear fusion, that occasionally show promise but always seem at least a few major steps away from becoming a reality in day-to-day life. However, Japanese researchers seem to have made some major developments in the efficiency of the tech, thanks to that wonderful, magical substance, caffeine.

Researchers from the Graduate School of Engineering at Chiba University in Japan have published a study in the scientific journal Communications Chemistry, detailing their discovery that the addition of caffeine to platinum electrodes in fuel cells lessens the obstruction of efficient oxygen reaction. 

Currently the presence of water affects the performance of fuel cells by reacting with platinum catalysts, meaning that fuel cells need to make use of a substantial amount of platinum, a particularly valuable substance to maintain an effective reaction.

By immersing the platinum electrodes in an electrolyte solution containing caffeine,

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