Passing the acid test: New, low-pH system recycles more carbon into valuable products

 Engineering researchers have found a way to transform carbon dioxide into valuable products, like ethylene and ethanol. Companies do not find this discovery as an economic advantage, so engineers made it possible to convert captured CO2 and water to make building blocks for everyday materials. The team updated the previous systems by doing the reaction under strongly acidic conditions, which reduces undesired reactions. Using high acidity reacts up to 70% of CO2 while previous conditions would utilize only 15% of the CO2 and create a carbonate product and waste the CO2. 50% of the CO2 reaction is converted to multi-carbon products, like ethylene, the most commercially produced organic compound in the world. There was a problem with this system; hydrogen ions would be converted to hydrogen gas in the acidic solution, leaving fewer electrons available to the CO2. To solve this problem they increased the electric current, causing the hydrogen ions to have mass transport limitations. On their improvements, they created an electrical field near the solid catalyst to make it easier for CO2 to bond with hydrogen. Hydrogen has a smaller chance of forming a diatomic bond.

University of Sydney. (2021, June 3). Passing the acid test: New, low-pH system recycles more carbon into valuable products: Electrochemical reactor converts up to 70 percent of CO2 into products such as ethylene and ethanol. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 7, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210603171109.htm