VATIS UPDATE Article

A team of researchers working at the University of Science and Technology, China, has developed a new and potentially better electrocatalyst for use in converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into methanoic acid, which could be used as a liquid fuel. The team found that it may provide a path to reducing CO2 emissions and thus help to slow global warming. In this new effort, the researchers tried a new approach, a four-atom thick layer of either mixed or pure cobalt and cobalt oxide.

They found that the cobalt, which is not normally catalytically active for carbon dioxide, became active when arranged in a certain oxidized state. In testing their catalyst, the team found it able convert CO2 to methanoic acid and that it provided better catalytic activity than other known metal or metal oxides. These findings point to new opportunities for manipulating and improving the CO2 electroreduction properties of metal systems, especially once the influence of both the atomic-scale structure and the presence of oxide are mechanistically better understood.