Copper nanoflowers power clean fuel production

The device from researchers at Cambridge University and the University of California, Berkeley combines a light-absorbing ‘leaf’ made from perovskite with a copper nanoflower catalyst to convert carbon dioxide into useful molecules.

Unlike most metal catalysts, which convert CO₂ into single-carbon molecules, the copper flowers enable the formation of more complex hydrocarbons with two carbon atoms, such as ethane and ethylene, which are key building blocks for liquid fuels, chemicals and plastics.

Almost all hydrocarbons currently stem from fossil fuels, but the method developed by the Cambridge-Berkeley team results in clean chemicals and fuels made from CO2, water and glycerol – a common organic compound – without any additional carbon emissions. Their results are detailed in Nature Catalysis.

The study builds on the team’s earlier work on artificial leaves, which took inspiration from photosynthesis. 

“We wanted to go beyond basic carbon dioxide reduction and produce more complex hydrocarbons, but that requires significantly more energy,” said lead author Dr Virgil Andrei from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry.