Low-energy carbon activation process could replace methane flaring

Known as carbon activation, the conversion of carbon dioxide and methane into useful compounds like fuels or polymers has long been a goal of the chemical industry. Both compounds are in ready supply, and both are potent greenhouse gases contributing to climate change — methane having a far more potent greenhouse potential than CO₂ — but both are extremely stable and therefore difficult to persuade to react without using high temperatures and pressures — themselves difficult to achieve without using more energy.

The Liverpool team, led by electrical engineer Xin Tu, has devised a process that converts a mixture of methane and CO₂ to acetic acid in a single step. Taking place at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, the process involves a non-thermal plasma — an electrically-charged gas mixture — to use the methane as a source of hydrogen. In a paper in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the team says that this reaction is almost impossible to achieve by heating the gas mixture, even using a catalyst, because the thermodynamic barrier is so high.