Using carbon dioxide (CO2) as a feedstock for commodity synthesis is an attractive means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and a possible stepping-stone towards renewable synthetic fuels. A major impediment to synthesizing compounds from CO2 is the difficulty of forming carbon–carbon (C–C) bonds efficiently: although CO2 reacts readily with carbon-centred nucleophiles, generating these intermediates requires high-energy reagents (such as highly reducing metals or strong...
Tag Archives: carbon
Sustainable chemistry: Putting carbon dioxide to work
Carbon dioxide is an abundant resource, but difficult for industry to use effectively. A simple reaction might allow it to be used to make commercial products more sustainably than with current processes. See Letter p.215
Nature 531 180 doi: 10.1038/531180a
Climate science: Hidden trends in the ocean carbon sink
Simulations of the flux of atmospheric carbon dioxide into the ocean show that changes in flux associated with human activities are currently masked by natural climate variations, but will be evident in the near future. See Letter p.469
Nature 530 426 doi: 10.1038/530426a
Plankton networks driving carbon export in the oligotrophic ocean
The biological carbon pump is the process by which CO2 is transformed to organic carbon via photosynthesis, exported through sinking particles, and finally sequestered in the deep ocean. While the intensity of the pump correlates with plankton community composition, the underlying ecosystem structure driving the process remains largely uncharacterized. Here we use environmental and metagenomic data gathered during the Tara Oceans expedition to improve...
Slab melting as a barrier to deep carbon subduction
Interactions between crustal and mantle reservoirs dominate the surface inventory of volatile elements over geological time, moderating atmospheric composition and maintaining a life-supporting planet. While volcanoes expel volatile components into surface reservoirs, subduction of oceanic crust is responsible for replenishment of mantle reservoirs. Many natural, ‘superdeep’ diamonds originating in the deep upper mantle and transition zone...
Partially oxidized atomic cobalt layers for carbon dioxide electroreduction to liquid fuel
Electroreduction of CO2 into useful fuels, especially if driven by renewable energy, represents a potentially ‘clean’ strategy for replacing fossil feedstocks and dealing with increasing CO2 emissions and their adverse effects on climate. The critical bottleneck lies in activating CO2 into the CO2•− radical anion or other intermediates that can be converted further, as the activation usually requires impractically high overpotentials. Recently, electrocatalysts based...
Partially oxidized atomic cobalt layers for carbon dioxide electroreduction to liquid fuel
Electroreduction of CO2 into useful fuels, especially if driven by renewable energy, represents a potentially ‘clean’ strategy for replacing fossil feedstocks and dealing with increasing CO2 emissions and their adverse effects on climate. The critical bottleneck lies in activating CO2 into the CO2•− radical anion or other intermediates that can be converted further, as the activation usually requires impractically high overpotentials. Recently, electrocatalysts based...
Lenovo X1 Carbon adds tablet and desktop editions, and a Yoga that ditches the LCD
LAS VEGAS—Last year's Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon was a return to form for Lenovo's X1 Ultrabook, with a keyboard to die for, strong performance, and a 14-inch screen in a 13-inch package. This year, Lenovo is taking the X1 branding—light, powerful, high-end machines—and diversifying it. No longer just a laptop, the company is launching a Yoga-brand 360-degree hinge X1 laptop, an X1 tablet, an...
Four-electron deoxygenative reductive coupling of carbon monoxide at a single metal site
Carbon dioxide is the ultimate source of the fossil fuels that are both central to modern life and problematic: their use increases atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases, and their availability is geopolitically constrained. Using carbon dioxide as a feedstock to produce synthetic fuels might, in principle, alleviate these concerns. Although many homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide, further deoxygenative coupling...
Elon Musk explains why a carbon tax is as necessary as garbage collection fees
Policymakers have been debating – and dismissing – the idea of putting a tax on carbon emissions for more than a decade, but the way billionaire innovator Elon Musk...
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