A mean, green, ethylene machine

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By Science Adviser. 

Excerpt: The chemicals industry is one of the most carbon-intensive industries on the planet, consuming vast amounts of energy to operate production facilities and stoke necessary chemical reactions. Making the industry greener may rely on changing some of the chemistry itself. Hydrogenation, the process that splits apart molecular hydrogen (H2) and adds it to other compounds, is found in a quarter of all chemical industry processes. Since it typically requires energy-intensive high heat and pressure, researchers wanted to probe a more natural energy source: light. Titanium dioxide, a common photocatalyst, was already known to absorb ultraviolet light, so the team tried irradiating it with such light to peel hydrogen molecules apart. ...The researchers used their method to produce ethylene, the world’s most-produced organic chemical and a key component of manufacturing fuels, plastics, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals. In a related Perspective, nanochemist Emiliano Cortés envisions using solar cells to power the production of green hydrogen and the light source for hydrogenation, combined with carbon capture to supply the necessary carbon dioxide. While the kinks in using light instead of heat still need to be worked out, the process may one day “circumvent the fossil economy entirely,” he writes.... 

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