Electrochemical Production of Acetylene from CO2 Using Molten Chloride Salts.
The following paper is open to the public, and there is no need to excerpt it extensively: New Route of Acetylene Synthesis via Electrochemical Formation of Metal Carbides from CO2 in Chloride Melts Yuta Suzuki, Seiya Tanaka, Takashi Watanabe, Tomohiro Isogai, Akiyoshi Yamauchi, Yosuke Kishikawa, and Takuya Goto ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 2024 12 (5), 2110-2119.
It is well known that one route to acetylene is to react molten calcium metal with carbon and then hydrolyze it with water, generating calcium hydroxide and acetylene.
Acetylene is, of course, a fuel, generally used in welding torches and other high temperature applications, but it can also be a key intermediate in the production of ethylene (ethene) a very valuable chemical commodity.
What is cool about this paper is the production, electrochemically, of calcium (or lithium) carbide from CO2 in chloride melts.
By coincidence I just attended a lecture by the great chemist Jim Wishart of BNL on the subject of chloride melts, whereupon he commented on their structure, although I haven't necessarily been a chloride melt kind of guy, at least not for nuclear applications.
I commented on similar work designed to produce elemental carbon from CO2 elsewhere on DU:
Electrolysis of Lithium-Free Molten Carbonates
In a case where waste electricity is available as a result of process intensification using nuclear heat, these kinds of processes can be utilized, in theory, to reverse climate change. Note however that to reduce CO2, all of the energy generated that put it there, plus an investment of energy to overcome entropy, must be reproduced.
Nonetheless, this is a very cool paper, with nice references pointing to papers on the formation of valuable transition metal carbides.
Enjoy the work week.
