Converting Greenhouse Gases into Valuable Chemicals with Sunlight | AIChE

Converting Greenhouse Gases into Valuable Chemicals with Sunlight

November
2024

Carbon dioxide and methane, two major greenhouse gases, can be converted to green methanol and carbon monoxide in a single step, new research finds.

Researchers led by Chao-Jun Li, a chemist at McGill Univ. in Canada, used the semiconductor gallium nitride studded with gold and palladium nanoparticles as a catalyst for the sunlight-driven reaction.

Co-converting methane and carbon dioxide into more valuable chemicals has long been of interest in the name of combating climate change and turning waste into something useable, notes Li, but previous attempts often required high temperatures or additional reactions. For example, dry reforming can convert these greenhouse gases into syngas, but for economic feasibility, the syngas must then be converted with additional steps into chemicals such as methanol (CH3OH).

The new reaction removes the need for additional processing to get methanol as the final product. “For the first time, at room temperature, with light, you can generate this reaction,” Li says.

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