Tandem Catalytic System Efficiently Converts Carbon Dioxide to Methanol
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Tandem catalytic system efficiently converts carbon dioxide to methanol:
Converting carbon dioxide to methanol, a potentially renewable alternative fuel, offers an opportunity to simultaneously form an alternative fuel and cut down on carbon dioxide emissions.
Inspired by naturally occurring processes, a team of Boston College chemists used a multi-catalyst system to convert carbon dioxide to methanol at the lowest temperatures reported with high activity and selectivity, the researchers reported in a recent online edition of the journal Chem.
The team's discovery was made possible by installing multiple catalysts in a single system constructed within a sponge-like porous crystalline material known as a metal-organic framework, said Boston College Associate Professors of Chemistry Jeffery Byers and Frank Tsung, lead authors of the report.
Held in place by the sponge, the separate catalysts work in harmony. Without isolation of the catalytically active species in this way, the reaction did not proceed and no product was obtained, they reported.
The team drew its inspiration from the biological machinery in cells, which use multicomponent chemical reactions with great efficiency, Tsung said.
[...] In addition to achieving site isolation by encapsulating the catalysts, which led to catalyst activity and recyclability, the team discovered an autocatalytic feature of the catalyst that enabled the reaction to be run without the need for large amounts of additives. Most previous reports for similar reactions use large amounts of additives, but the team's approach avoids this necessity and it is the first to use carbon dioxide in an energy-related reaction, Tsung said.
The team plans to do further research into the modularity of both the encapsulation method and the metal-organic frameworks to gain a deeper understanding of the multicomponent system and optimize it further, as well as access new, unexplored reactivity through the formation of new host-guest constructs, Tsung said.
Journal Reference:
Thomas M. Rayder, Enric H. Adillon, Jeffery A. Byers, Chia-Kuang Tsung. A Bioinspired Multicomponent Catalytic System for Converting Carbon Dioxide into Methanol Autocatalytically [$].Chem May 05, 2020. DOI:10.1016/j.chempr.2020.04.008
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