You may not know methanol by name, but this alcohol plays a big role in making a lot of the things in our lives. It’s an ingredient in plastics and paints, for instance. And being highly flammable, it can be used as a liquid fuel. But making it has typically required multiple steps and high heat. It also produced lots of wastes. Now scientists have found an easy way to make methanol that avoids many of those drawbacks.
Their trick: Add lightning.
Explainer: What are the different states of matter?
Lightning is a form of plasma — what many scientists call the fourth state of matter. It forms from a high-voltage electrical pulse.
Researchers have now shown plasma can quickly convert methane — the main component of natural gas — into methanol. All it takes is adding electricity, they explain in the April 15 Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“Lightning” in a bottle makes methanol in a simple, one...
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