Researchers at Shizuoka University and other institutions in Japan have developed a new technology to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into methane, which promises to greatly reduce emissions from coal-fired power stations and factories and can be used as fuel, among other things.

Magnesium is burning in CO2

The team first coated the inside of the tubes with a porous material containing nickel nanoparticles several millimeters in diameter and about 5 centimeters long. Then they clustered the tubes together to make tubes about 2 centimeters in diameter and about 5 centimeters long. When a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas passes through the pipe and is heated at the same time, the mixture reacts inside the pipe and comes out at the other end of the pipe as methane.

Carbon dioxide（CO2） production plant

There have been techniques to produce methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, but they are too inefficient to be practical. The new method is about 90 percent efficient at converting carbon dioxide into methane. In the future, the Japanese research team is looking for a partner to verify the actual production.