Ionic liquid catalyst could help turn emissions into fuel

The catalyst is claimed to overcome a major obstacle to producing technology that simultaneously reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide and produces fuel.

Paul Kenis, professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of Illinois, and his research group joined forces with researchers at Dioxide Materials to produce the catalyst, which is described in a paper published in the journal Science.

Artificial photosynthesis is the process of converting carbon-dioxide (CO₂) gas into useful carbon-based chemicals, most notably fuel or other compounds usually derived from petroleum, as an alternative to extracting them from biomass.

However, artificial photosynthesis has been kept from the mainstream because the process is too energy intensive.

The first step to making fuel requires turning CO₂ into carbon monoxide. This process requires so much electricity to drive, more energy is used to produce the fuel than it can store.

The Illinois group claims to have overcome this major hurdle by introducing an ionic liquid to catalyse the reaction, greatly reducing the energy required to drive the process.