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Stanford team devises new bio-inspired strategy for using CO2 to produce multi-carbon compounds such as plastics and fuels

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In the paper in Nature they showed that intermediate-temperature (200 to 350 ˚C) molten salts containing caesium or potassium cations enable carbonate ions (CO 3 2– ) to deprotonate very weakly acidic C–H bonds, generating carbon-centered nucleophiles that react with CO 2 to form carboxylates. —Banerjee et al.

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Sadoway and MIT team demonstrate calcium-metal-based liquid metal battery

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MIT professor Donald Sadoway and his team have demonstrated a long-cycle-life calcium-metal-based liquid-metal rechargeable battery for grid-scale energy storage, overcoming the problems that have precluded the use of the element: its high melting temperature, high reactivity and unfavorably high solubility in molten salts.