A new acceleration additive for making 'ice that burns'
October 23, 2006Japanese scientists are reporting discovery of an additive that can speed up the formation of methane hydrates. Those strange substances have sparked excitement about their potential as a new energy resource and a deep freeze to store greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Methane hydrates are literally ice that burns -- frozen methane (the main component of natural gas) found in vast natural deposits beneath the seafloor in coastal areas of the United States and certain other parts of the world. When brought to the surface, hydrates pop and sizzle as they release gas and burst into flame if ignited. Known hydrate deposits hold enough natural gas to supply the world for centuries.
One barrier to exploiting this treasure has been difficulty in making gas hydrates in the laboratory that could be used for research on ways to utilize these substances as a fuel. Akihiro Yamasaki and colleagues have found that addition of an additive made from beta-cyclodextrin accelerates methane hydrate formation 5-fold. Their report is scheduled for the Nov. 15 issue of the ACS bimonthly journal Energy & Fuels.
Cyclodextrins are a family of polymers produced from starch. Their wide range of uses includes the food, pharmaceutical and chemical industries. Cyclodextrin is the active ingredient in a popular home deodorizing product.
Source: American Chemical Society
-
The great gas hydrate escape
Jan 18, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (7) |
2
-
Methane may be answer to 56-million-year question
Nov 09, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (21) |
18
-
Gas hydrate strategy reinforced
Sep 15, 2011 |
4 / 5 (6) |
9
-
Japan to test-drill for seabed 'burning ice'
Jul 25, 2011 |
5 / 5 (1) |
4
-
New study argues against conclusion that bacteria consumed Deepwater Horizon methane
May 26, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
3
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
More news stories
Fool's gold may prove an unlikely alternative to overexploited catalytic materials
Catalytic materials, which lower the energy barriers for chemical reactions, are used in everything from the commercial production of chemicals to catalytic converters in car engines. However, with current catalytic materials ...
15 hours ago |
4.4 / 5 (8) |
5
|
Unpicking HIV’s invisibility cloak
Drug researchers hunting for alternative ways to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections may soon have a novel target—its camouflage coat. HIV hides inside a cloak unusually rich in a sugar ...
15 hours ago |
5 / 5 (5) |
0
Hydrogen from acidic water: Researchers develop potential low cost alternative to platinum for splitting water
A technique for creating a new molecule that structurally and chemically replicates the active part of the widely used industrial catalyst molybdenite has been developed by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley ...
Feb 09, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (14) |
15
|
No entry without protein recycling: Researchers discover new coherence in enzyme transport
The group of Prof. Dr. Ralf Erdmann at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany, discovered a connection of peroxisomal protein import and receptor export. In the Journal of Biological Chemistry, they disclo ...
15 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Under the microscope #7
In this video Dr Ingrid Graz shows us a thin layer of gold on top of rubber. Cracks in the gold allow it to stretch and we can use this for stretchable electronics.
17 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline (Update)
The website of the Central Intelligence Agency was inaccessible on Friday after the hacker group Anonymous claimed to have knocked it offline.
Google users warned of threat to smartphone wallets
Users of Google smartphone wallets were being warned on Friday that there is a way to crack pass codes intended to thwart thieves from going on illicit shopping sprees.
New error-correcting codes guarantee the fastest possible rate of data transmission
Error-correcting codes are one of the triumphs of the digital age. They’re a way of encoding information so that it can be transmitted across a communication channel — such as an optical fiber o ...
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
New power source discovered
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT University have made a breakthrough in energy storage and power generation.
Small modular reactor design could be a 'SUPERSTAR'
(PhysOrg.com) -- Though most of today's nuclear reactors are cooled by water, we've long known that there are alternatives; in fact, the world's first nuclear-powered electricity in 1951 came from a reactor ...
