Storing renewable electricity in molecules can solve two problems at once:first of all environmentally harmful CO2 can be used as afeedstock,and secondly it can enhance our capacity to store renewable electricity in chemical bonds for long periods of time.The latter is necessary because traditional batteries do not yet have the capacity to ensure enough flexibility,stability and security to store wind and solar energy on alarge scale for extended time periods.Utrecht University researchers are publishing aPerspective article on the status quo of‘Power to Methane’today in Nature Catalysis.First author Charlotte Vogt comments:“Aside from understanding fundamental physical and chemical concepts behind catalytic reactions,I’m especially interested to know if and how the research Iam doing can impact society.That’s why Iwanted to start this societally relevant,but still fundamental research project.”Another process that can be used to store electricity in molecules is the conversion of water to hydrogen via electrolysis.This process is cheaper than methanation,because it involves fewer reaction steps.The researchers have now calculated that despite this higher cost of the process,it can still be beneficial to make methane out of CO2 because storage of methane is ten times cheaper than hydrogen.This way,we can store electricity for seasons in apotentially cheaper manner than by using only hydrogen.“The important part of this idea is that we do not send the methane to houses,where it gets re-emitted as CO2,but rather to recycle this carbon again and again in aclosed-loop process,”says Vogt.“This process of using methane as achemical battery has an overall efficiency of roughly 34%,so we need alot of CO2 to ensure that our‘battery’gets big enough.”Another option is to make methane out of sustainably resourced biomass or municipal waste.In this case,the methane could be sent to houses through our natural gas network.However,without acarbon tax this synthetic natural gas(SNG)will be more expensive than fossil methane,so it is unlikely that this process will come to fruition in the near future. 查看详细>>

Scientists from Utrecht University,University Medical Center Utrecht and Hubrecht Institute have successfully created kidney organoids from urine cells.This could lead to awide range of new treatments that are less onerous for kidney patients.The results of the research were published in Nature Biotechnology on March 4th.Thanks to revolutionary developments in stem cell research,scientists can grow mini intestines,livers,lungs and pancreases in the lab.Recently,by growing so-called pluripotent stem cells,they have also been able to do this for kidneys.In their study,the researchers from Utrecht University used adult stem cells,directly from the patient,for the first time.Urine cells also proved to be ideal for this purpose.A mini kidney from the lab doesn‘t look like anormal kidney.But the simple cell structures share many of the characteristics of real kidneys,so researchers can use them to study certain kidney diseases.‘We can use these mini kidneys to model various disorders:hereditary kidney diseases,infections and cancer.This allows us to study in detail what exactly is going wrong’,says Hans Clevers,Professor of Molecular Genetics at Utrecht University and the University Medical Center Utrecht,and group leader at the Hubrecht Institute.‘This helps us to understand the workings of healthy kidneys better,and hopefully,in the future,we will be able to develop treatments for kidney disorders.’ 查看详细>>

Chemists at Utrecht University have managed to utilise cobalt as acatalyst for the production of basic chemicals from natural gas.In doing so,they have reduced the carbon dioxide emissions in avital step of the chemical conversion process from 50 per cent to almost zero.Nature Communications published the findings by the group of inorganic chemists led by Krijn de Jong today.The chemical industry uses basic chemicals made from petroleum for the large-scale production of plastics,pharmaceuticals,and solvents.In the process,considerable energy is lost as the long carbohydrate molecules that petroleum is made of are cut into smaller pieces.The transition to natural gas and biomass as raw materials is now in full swing.One possible reaction path in that transition uses iron as achemical catalyst,but at the moment the process loses around 50%of the carbon in the form of CO2.Cobalt instead of iron Aformer PhD candidate at Utrecht University’s Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Research has discovered that CO2 emissions can be reduced to zero when she used modified cobalt to catalyse the reaction instead of iron.UU inorganic chemist Krijn de Jong:“This is abreakthrough in catalysis science,and it has everything to do with the size,shape,crystalline structure,and surface composition of the cobalt nanoparticles.”Essential sodium and sulphur particles Via the intermediate product‘synthesis gas’,a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen,the circumstances can be optimised to create light olefins.In the older reaction using iron as acatalyst,50%of the synthesis gas had atendency to change into carbon dioxide,and part of it converted back into methane.But when cobalt is used as acatalyst,almost no carbon dioxide is created,and very little methane.De Jong:“That’s because the surface holds particles of sodium and sulphur,which are essential for suppressing the formation of methane.” 查看详细>>

The Netherlands would do well to learn from Angela Merkel‘s migration policy and the Israeli cybersecurity approach.This was the conclusion of an analysis conducted by an interdisciplinary research team from Utrecht University,commissioned by the Ministry of Justice and Security‘s Research and Documentation Centre(WODC).The report,entitled‘Towards aResilient Open Society‘,offers building blocks for future security policy.‘Security considerations in the Netherlands are often pragmatic,but sometimes naive,‘according to head researcher Mirko Noordegraaf.‘The security situation in the Netherlands has changed for the worse over the last few years.How can we find abalance between making asociety resilient,while at the same time protecting an open society that respects democratic values and the rule of law?In an attempt to answer this question,we considered two case studies:German migration policy and Israeli cybersecurity policy.‘ 查看详细>>