Clean Energy Breakthrough: Bottled Lightning Produces Methanol in New “Bubble Reactor”

Clean Energy Breakthrough: Bottled Lightning Produces Methanol in New “Bubble Reactor”

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Scientists Are Using Lightning in a Bottle to Turn Methane Into Methanol

The findings potentially resolve a long-standing issue with methanol conversion, which has tended to be clunky, inefficient, and environmentally detrimental.

Mini lightning bolts help chemists turn methane into clean-burning fuel

Tiny bolts of plasma, flickering inside a submerged glass tube, may have opened a new route for turning methane into liquid fuel. Chemists from Northwestern University have developed a way to convert methane directly into methanol in a single step, using electricity, water and a copper oxide catalyst instead of the punishing heat and pressure used in conventional production. The process relies on pulses of high voltage that create miniature ligh…

Captured Lightning Powers Cleaner Fuel

Northwestern University chemists have pioneered a remarkable advancement in the conversion of natural gas into liquid fuel by employing a technique evocative of capturing “lightning in a bottle.” This innovative process utilizes brief pulses of plasma—miniature lightning bolts generated inside glass tubes submerged in water—to convert methane, the primary component of natural gas, directly into […]

Bottled lightning makes a cleaner fuel

New process uses tiny bursts of underwater plasma discharges to convert methane to methanol in just one step.