Thanks. That is interesting; I'd seen the headline and 'surfed' right past. It seems to be a combination of strategies — the transition metal dichalcogenides as catalysts
having a reactor that has differing solar chemistries on the anode and cathode
....and an engineering fix to a show-stopper
Quote:
"The active sites of the catalyst get poisoned and oxidized," Salehi-Khojin said. The breakthrough, he said, was to use an ionic fluid called ethyl-methyl-imidazolium tetrafluoroborate, mixed 50-50 with water.
"The combination of water and the ionic liquid makes a co-catalyst that preserves the catalyst's active sites under the harsh reduction reaction conditions," Salehi-Khojin said.
Read more at: Breakthrough solar cell captures carbon dioxide and sunlight, produces burnable fuel
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So— good on them. They mention small-scale; I wonder if they are thinking about 3D printing cells the proportions of a Maple leaf. If they did they could use the fluttering of the leaf in it's Karmann vortex shedding to pump the liquid fuel around.
How do they interface the two electrolytes?