2009 Volume 58 Issue 7 Pages 250-259
Extrapolation of world energy consumption between 1990 and 2006 to the future reveals the complete exhaustion of petroleum, natural gas, coal and uranium reserves on the Earth in 2037, 2042, 2055 and 2057, respectively. We are proposing global carbon dioxide recycling to use renewable energy by which all people in the whole world can survive. The electricity will be generated by solar cell in the deserts and used for production of hydrogen by seawater electrolysis at the nearby desert coasts. Hydrogen, for which no infrastructures of transportation and combustion exist, will be converted to methane at the desert coasts by the reaction with carbon dioxide captured by energy consumers. Among systems in global carbon dioxide recycling, seawater electrolysis and carbon dioxide methanation have not been performed industrially. We created energy-saving cathodes for hydrogen production and anodes for oxygen evolution without chlorine formation in seawater electrolysis, and ideal catalysts for methane formation by the reaction of carbon dioxide with hydrogen. The key factors for realization of global carbon dioxide recycling are the activity enhancement and corrosion prevention of those key materials.
