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knightdepaix

Member

Registered: 2014-07-07

Posts: 239

Burning silane in carbon dioxide to give carbon monoxide?

Burning monosilane in carbon dioxide gives water, carbon black and silicon dioxide in a fuel cell of an electric vehicle. Instead, can a mixture of alkylmonosilane (m.p. -99oC, b.p. 26oC on Earth) and trisilane (m.p. -117oC, bp 53oC on Earth) be used as a liquid fuel so carbon dioxide is changed to carbon monoxide. Both water and carbon monoxide are dumped or exhausted. Only silicon dioxide is collected in a compartment in the fuel cell. At a refueling (gas) station, the compartment is exchanged for a new empty one.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,852

Re: Burning silane in carbon dioxide to give carbon monoxide?

knightdepaix,

At what pressure does the CO2 have to be introduced to the fuel cell for this process to work with a fuel cell of reasonable mass?

Can you simply suck CO2 out of the atmosphere at ambient pressure or do you need a low-efficiency vacuum pump to obtain CO2 at the pressure required for this scheme to work?

People pay good money for carbon black here on Earth, so we might want to keep that stuff for use in tires / batteries / super caps / other electronics / pigments / etc.  The synthesis methods determine what they're useful for.  It might be useful to have designer fuel cells that produce different varieties of carbon black for the various uses.  40B2 is good for rubber.  N134 and N660, not so much.

What variety of carbon black would this fuel cell produce and how easy would disassembly for useful product removal be?

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,431

Re: Burning silane in carbon dioxide to give carbon monoxide?

I think we sort of have some of the response in these topics.

Mars Insitu Fuels made from atmosphere, regolith, water
Silane Hoppers - Use the CO2 man
LOX/CO2-Diborane rocket for reusable landing boats