Surprising Tribo-catalytic Conversion of H2O and CO2 into Flammable Gases utilizing Frictions of Copper in Water

Abstract

Copper rotary disks were fabricated through mounting copper disks and magnets on opposite surfaces of Teflon disks separately, and quartz glass reactors (150 mL) were modified through covering their bottoms with Al2O3, copper, and titanium disks separately. For a glass-bottomed reactor placed with a copper rotary disk and filled with 50 mL water and 1 atm CO2, flammable gases of 670.96 ppm H2, 22.21 ppm CO, 3.98 ppm CH4, 0.96 ppm C2H4, and 0.66 ppm C2H6 were surprisingly produced after the copper rotary disk was driven to rotate for 5 h; flammable gases were obtained in comparable amounts for reactors with Al2O3, copper, and titanium bottoms separately. A tribo-catalytic mechanism has been proposed, in which water at micro-holes in friction surfaces is squeezed by elastically deformed copper of rotating copper disks, and under increased pressure CO2 and H2O are catalyzed to react to form flammable gases by copper.