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Using captured CO2 as a chemical feedstock is widely considered toward establishing low carbon technologies to mitigate climate change. Process systems engineering analyses can help increase the chances of success by identifying attractive targets at early stages. Here, a comparative techno-economic and environmental analysis of three thermocatalytic CO2-based plants individually producing liquid hydrocarbon transportation fuels (LHTF), methanol, and 1-propanol is introduced. While the 1-propanol plant generates a remarkable profit, the LHTF and methanol plants are not economically viable, mainly due to the CO2 and H2 input cost. Sensitivity analysis shows that the feedstock prices need to drop by 80% for these two plants to break even. A tax structure is not a sensible option since it would be more than 4 times the highest carbon tax currently implemented in the country. In terms of the environmental performance, the CO2 utilization efficiencies are 45.5, 60.1, and −33.8% for LHTF, methanol, and 1-propanol syntheses, respectively. The negative utilization efficiency in the 1-propanol plant highlights the need of a greener production of its raw material ethylene. When the entire life cycles of the products are considered, these emerging plants emit 85.9, 77.4, and 35.9% less CO2 than their conventional counterparts for the same output. Our study provides the first evaluation of CO2-based 1-propanol synthesis, highlighting its potential, underscores gaps in the CO2-based LHTF, methanol, and 1-propanol by comparing them on a uniform common basis, and sets future research directions.

ECNS 2015, Zaragoza (Spain), August 30th-September 4th 2015, A particularly interesting aspect of Carbon Nanotubes is their use as nearly one-dimensional nano-containers. Apart of their possibilities for controlled chemistry in nano- fluidics devices new phenomena induced by confinement are also expected, such as liquid like ordered structures or exotic crystalline phases. Here, we present a series of neutron diffraction measurements (instrument D20, ILL, Grenoble) of molecular deuterium confined within Multiple Wall Carbon Nanotubes (MWCTNs). Bulk liquid D2 at its vapour pressure crystallises in an hcp structure at ~18.7 K. At low uptakes we have found a clear depression of the solidification temperature down to ~13.25 K. Interestingly, at the lowest uptake the diffraction pattern is consistent with the minimal fcc lattice compatible with a cylindrical symmetry.

We first focus on the role of the instrumental resolution in Elastic Incoherent Neutron Scattering (EINS) where the connection between the Self Distribution Function (SDF) and the measured EINS intensity profile is highlighted. Second we show how the SDF procedure allows both the total and the partial Mean Square Displacement (MSD) evaluation, through the total and the partial SDFs. Finally, we compare the SDF and the Gaussian procedures, by applying the two approaches to EINS data collected, by the IN13 backscattering spectrometer (ILL, Grenoble), on aqueous mixtures of two homologous disaccharides, i.e. sucrose and trehalose, and on myoglobin. © 2011 Bentham Science Publishers. All rights reserved.

VII Reunión de la Sociedad Española de Técnicas Neutrónicas, Pamplona, 22 - 25 Junio 2014