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Bismuth catalyst to treat excess carbon dioxide

8/24/2018

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains chemistry labs that are useful with inexpensive, easy to obtain materials.
 
For the 2018-19 school year, buy a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget.  It’s a great resource for your class!

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout. 
 
A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:
“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals…this is the lab book for you. 
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what [I] was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now.  It’s a great resource!
 
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html
 
*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !
 
“The chunk of metal sitting on a table in Joel Rosenthal’s office at the University of Delaware looks like it should belong in a wizard’s pocket. Shiny silver with shocks of pink and splashes of gold, it’s called bismuth, and it’s currently used to make products ranging from shotgun pellets to cosmetics and antacids, including Pepto-Bismol.

But Professor Rosenthal’s research is expanding bismuth’s repertoire—he’s identified a kind of magic in the metal that may be just what the doctor ordered for Planet Earth. He says it could help reduce rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and provide sustainable routes to making fuels.

Rosenthal and his team in UD’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have discovered that bismuth has an unusual property that can be harnessed to help the environment—as a chemical ‘spark’ or catalyst for converting carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, into liquid fuels and industrial chemicals. The findings are reported in ACS Catalysis, a journal published by the American Chemical Society. Rosenthal’s team also has filed a patent on the work. “
https://www.udel.edu/udaily/2018/may/joel-rosenthal-reducing-carbon-dioxide-through-catalytic-plasticity/
 
“Finding productive uses for carbon dioxide remains a key challenge in reducing emissions of the greenhouse gas. Now, researchers at the University of Delaware, Newark, report that bismuth can serve as an electrocatalyst to transform CO2 into liquid fuels and chemical feedstocks. Moreover, the catalyst can be tailored or tuned to efficiently promote multiple types of reactions, notes Joel Rosenthal, a professor at the university’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry who led the research. He refers to bismuth’s ability to do this as ‘catalytic plasticity.’ ”
https://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2018/bismuth-beckons-for-carbon-dioxide-conversion/
 
“Rosenthal refers to bismuth's specialized capability as ‘catalytic plasticity.’ When an electrical current is applied to a bismuth film in a bath of salty liquids containing imidazolium and amidinium ions, he and his team can  ’tune’ the chemical reaction to convert carbon dioxide to either a liquid fuel such as gasoline, or to formic acid—a valuable chemical with many industrial uses—from preserving human food and livestock feed, to manufacturing rubber and leather, artificial flavorings and perfumes.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-excess-carbon-dioxide-good.html
 
“This past April, [2018]  Earth's atmosphere attained its highest sustained levels of carbon dioxide since humans have been monitoring it -- exceeding 410 parts per million for the entire month -- according to measurements made at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180530132954.htm
 
​“Bismuth (Bi), atomic number 83, is a high-density, silvery, pink-tinged metal.  Bismuth metal is brittle and so it is usually mixed with other metals to make it useful. Its alloys with tin or cadmium have low melting points and are used in fire detectors and extinguishers, electric fuses and solders.
 
Bismuth oxide is used as a yellow pigment for cosmetics and paints, while bismuth(III) chloride oxide (BiClO) gives a pearly effect to cosmetics. Basic bismuth carbonate is taken in tablet or liquid form for indigestion as ‘bismuth mixture’.”
http://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/83/bismuth
 
“Using bismuth(III) triflate as a precursor, the researchers electrodeposited amorphous bismuth metal on a carbon electrode under mild conditions. The bismuth catalyst achieves current densities that are an order of magnitude greater than existing silver and gold CO2-reduction catalysts.  The high current density means that a device using the catalyst can churn out a large volume of CO per electrode area. Clifford P. Kubiak, an expert in catalytic CO2 fixation at the University of California, San Diego, says that although challenges remain with the system, such as the high operating potential and the coproduction of water with the CO, ‘this is a very important contribution to the field of electrochemical reduction of CO2.’ “
https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i20/Bismuth-Catalyzes-CO2-Reduction.html
 
Keep looking for other experiments that replicate this technique and support its claims.
 

Past blog posts related to Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide include:
 
11/06/2015    Inventions to Recycle Carbon Dioxide
​02/06/2016    Carbon Dioxide Conversion to Methanol
08/21/2016    Solar Cell Converts CO2 to Usable Fuel
07/21/2017    Converting Carbon Dioxide to Methane
04/13/2018    Once We Can Capture CO2 Emissions...
06/01/2018    Film on Ocean Water Interrupts
                        CO2 Absorption
08/03/2018   Concrete That Traps CO2 Emissions Forever
 
Past blog posts about The Periodic Table include:
 
02/23/2014            The Periodic Table
04/01/2015            NOVA video "Hunting the Elements" (2012)
12/03/2015            Periodic Table Trend Activities
01/07/2016            Four New Elements
06/12/2016            New Elements Named
12/09/2016            Cool Periodic Table
​01/05/2018            Naming Elements
 
For the 2018/2019 school year, buy a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget – it is a great resource!  You can examine the labs and decide what you want to use during the school year.

*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom.  Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.
 
Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.
 
Have a great weekend!

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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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