Carbon capture makes electricity

A battery developed from widely available materials produces electricity by capturing carbon dioxide from gas mixtures.

Wajdi Al Sadat and Lynden Archer at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, designed an aluminium-based electrochemical cell. At the cell's cathode, oxygen is reduced to form a superoxide, which then binds CO₂ and combines with aluminium from the anode to form aluminium oxalate.

The authors estimate that for each kilogram of aluminium, more than 9 kilograms of CO₂ can be captured from flue gas and transformed to generate 3.6 kilowatt-hours of electricity. This offers a strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions while producing power.

Sci. Adv. 2, e1600968 (2016)