The Chinese University of Science and Technology has developed a new catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into fuel

China Coatings Online News Information: In today's global climate change challenges, how to remove greenhouse gases more effectively is one of the scientific community's exploration direction.
Reporters from the University of Science and Technology of China learned that the Chinese University of Science and Technology Hefei National Laboratory of Microscale Material Science Professor Xie Yi, Professor Sun Yongfut ren team designed a new type of electrocatalytic material, carbon dioxide can be efficiently "clean" into liquid fuel foric acid, the results published on January 7 in the journal Nature.
, the research team designed a hybrid model system to study the effect of metal surface oxides on its own metal electro catalytic properties. The study found that ultra-thin two-dimensional materials mixed with cobalt and cobalt oxides can greatly improve the catalytic reduction properties of carbon dioxide in their block materials.
the scientific community has done a lot of work on how to reduce carbon dioxide in the air more effectively. The capture of carbon dioxide in the air has entered a phase of small-scale industrialization. Using carbon dioxide, there are also many solutions, different reduction solutions will produce different products, such as methane, foric acid, formaldehyde, methanol and other industrial raw materials.
" existing schemes require the use of expensive precious metal catalysts, while others produce multiple types of products, d'a resulting in difficulties in subsequent separation. As a result, the scientific community is constantly exploring newer and better solutions. Professor Sun Yongfu, a member of the task force, said.
Yongfu said that the electric reduction process is the use of electric catalysts in the role of an added electric field to convert carbon dioxide into different kinds of chemicals. This process offers the possibility of consuming carbon dioxide "cleanly" while also producing some useful chemicals. However, the activity of carbon dioxide has been a bottleneck in this process, often requiring a lot of energy.
Sun Yongfu told reporters that his research team designed and produced four layers of atomic-thick cobalt and cobalt oxide hybrid two-dimensional materials to act as electrical catalysts. The researchers demonstrated that cobalt has a higher catalytic carbon dioxide activity when located in a specific arrangement method and oxidation price state, i.e. the presence of ultra-thin two-dimensional structures and metal oxides improves the ability to catalytic reduce carbon dioxide. The work could help researchers rethink how to obtain an efficient and stable carbon dioxide reduction catalyst, and could also be important in driving research into the electrocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide.
But Chinese scientists also point out that their research is still in the purely basic research stage and that there are many key problems to overcome from practical applications, such as the concentration of carbon dioxide and the separation of products.