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PNNL team develops higher-strength, lower-cost titanium alloy aimed at improving vehicle fuel economy and reducing CO2 emissions

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However, wide scale adoption of β-titanium alloys in transportation applications has been limited due to its high cost. The cost of β-titanium alloys can be lowered by replacing the expensive β stabilizers such as Mo, Cr and V (in full or in part) by low cost Fe such as the case in Ti–1Al–8V–5Fe (Ti-185) alloy introduced in 1960s.

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Ford first automaker to use captured CO2 to develop foam and plastic for vehicles

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Novomer is commercializing a proprietary catalyst system that transforms waste CO 2 into high performance, low-cost polymers for a variety of applications, including foam and plastic that are easily recyclable. Low Finished Polymer Cost. Among these companies is Novomer. These polymers contain up to 50% CO 2 by mass.

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GWU research team C2CNT advances to the final round of the Carbon XPRIZE; CO2 to carbon nanotubes

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The C2CNT team uses low-energy, low-cost technology developed in the Licht lab located at GW’s Virginia Science and Technology Campus to transform carbon dioxide into widely useful and highly valued products—carbon nanotubes. Illustration credit: Licht, from Scientific Reports at Nature.com, 6:27760, 2016.

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Berkeley Lab team creates “cyborgian” hybrid artificial photosynthesis system; CO2 to acetic acid at high yield

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Their hybrid approach combines the highly efficient light harvesting of inorganic semiconductors with the high specificity, low cost, and self-replication and -repair of biocatalysts. Sakimoto, Andrew Barnabas Wong, Peidong Yang (2016) “Self-photosensitization of nonphotosynthetic bacteria for solar-to-chemical production” Science Vol.

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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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Despite the many desirable attributes of PEF, the plastics industry has yet to find a low-cost way to manufacture it at scale. Kanan (2016) “Carbon dioxide utilization via carbonate-promoted C–H carboxylation” Nature 531, 215–219 doi: 10.1038/nature17185. —Banerjee et al. Aanindeeta Banerjee, Graham R.

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ORNL team devises electrocatalyst for direct conversion of CO2 into ethanol with high selectivity; pushing the combustion reaction in reverse

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Given the technique’s reliance on low-cost materials and an ability to operate at room temperature in water, the researchers believe the approach could be scaled up for industrially relevant applications. For instance, the process could be used to store excess electricity generated from variable power sources such as wind and solar.

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DOE issues 4 funding opportunities totaling $78M for advanced biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts

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This waste carbon source resulted in around 5 gigatons of emissions in 2016 from the transportation, industrial, and electricity sector. scale carbon capture has enjoyed recent success, a major barrier to its utilization is the low energy content of CO 2 , making it relatively difficult to convert to fuels and products.

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