Liquid Metals Revolutionize Chemical Engineering Processes, Offer Solution to ‘Greening’ the Production Industry

A team of researchers tested a new technique that has the potential to replace energy-intensive chemical engineering processes that date back to the early 20th century.

Old Production Processes

Chemical production accounts for 10-15% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Aside from this, over 10% of the total energy on Earth is used in chemical factories. One of the challenges in chemical production is using old catalysts made from solid materials.

A catalyst is a substance that makes chemical reactions occur faster and easier without getting involved in the response. Since the early 20th century, solid catalysts, substantial metals or solid compounds of metals, have been used in the chemical industry to manufacture fuels, plastics, fertilizers, and feedstocks. However, using solid catalysts in chemical production is energy-intensive, requiring a temperature of up to a thousand degrees centigrade.

Revolutionizing Chemical Production

At the University of Sydney in Australia, researchers developed a much-needed innovation to move away from the old solid catalyst method. The team was led by Professor Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh, Head of the University of Sydney's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Compared to solids, liquid metals have more randomly arranged atoms and greater freedom to move. This enables them to participate and come easily in contact with chemical reactions. In theory, liquid metals can catalyze chemicals at much lower temperatures, requiring less energy.

According to Professor Kalantar-Zadeh, their method provides an unparalleled possibility to reduce energy consumption and promote sustainable chemical reactions. He further describes that the chemical sector is expected to account for over 20% of emissions by 2050, but chemical manufacturing is much less visible, so a paradigm shift is highly needed.

In this study, the researchers dissolved high nickel and tin melting points in a gallium-based liquid metal with a melting end of only 30 degrees centigrade. By doing so, scientists gained access to liquid nickel at very low temperatures, providing them with unique mobility to act as a 'super' catalyst. In comparison, the melting point of solid nickel is 1,455 degrees centigrade. The same effect is also observed in tin metal in liquid gallium to a lesser degree.

The research team dispersed the metals in liquid metal solvents at the atomic level, allowing them access to single-atom catalysts. In the chemical industry, a single atom has the highest surface area accessibility for catalysis, providing a remarkable advantage.

The resulting substance can migrate to the material's surface and react with input molecules like canola oil. This allowed the canola oil molecules to rotate, break apart, and reassemble into smaller organic chains, which are crucial for many industries.

Kalantar-Zadeh and his team believe their formula can also be used for other chemical reactions where metals are mixed using low-temperature processes. The process requires such low temperatures to catalyze that it can be theoretically done in the kitchen with a gas cooktop.