This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be harmful to the environment in large amounts but can be used in the production of fuels and other useful chemicals. Doing so isn't easy, though.
Now, Yale researchers have developed a new way to combine electrocatalysis and plasma to efficiently and practically generate a number of valuable products from the gas. The results are published in Nature Catalysis. Developing a scalable and practical way to convert CO₂ would not only reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but it could also provide a means of achieving net-zero carbon emissions and the long-term storage of intermittent renewable energy.
"The sorts of multi-carbon products we generate with this approach are really useful for a lot of chemical industries," said professor Lea Winter, who led the study. "These include higher-value products for use in pharmaceuticals, solvents and manufacturing a variety of chemicals—essentially alternatives and replacements for fossil fuel derivative chemicals." Winter also noted that it could produce the precursor chemicals needed for sustainable aviation fuel. Converting CO₂ is tricky even in a controlled laboratory setting.
Out of the lab—in an industrial setting, for instance—it's even more difficult. That's because CO₂ has such strong carbon-oxygen bonds and doesn't break down easily. Electrocatalysis, which uses an electric current and a catalyst to speed up chemical reactions, has been used with some success.
Typically, though, using electrocatalysis alone produces a limited number of simple-carbon products. For an extra boost, the researchers tried coupling plasma—a gas made of electrically charged particles that's often referred to as the fourth state of matter—to electrocatalysis to start breaking down CO₂ before it reaches the electrocatalyst. In this case, the free electrons in the plasma shake up and loosen the CO₂ bonds.
The electrocatalyst, a material carrying an electrical current, then rebuilds the pre-excited species from the CO₂ plasma into new products. "We find that plasma unlocks new reaction pathways that lead to the generation of products like methanol and butane, which are not generated with electrocatalysis alone," said Winter, assistant professor of chemical & environmental engineering. But these plasma-electrochemical processes typically use a water interface, which significantly limits the method's effectiveness.
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