New Catalyst Efficiently Converts Carbon Dioxide to Ethanol

Ethanol, a biofuel additive for gasoline, is traditionally produced from biomass. However, a new research has developed a catalyst that can produce the fuel directly from carbon dioxide.

Scientists from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a new electrocatalyst, made from copper nanoparticles, that directly converts carbon dioxide into multi-carbon fuels and alcohols using lower overpotential than typical electrocatalysts. The new electrocatalyst creates the right conditions needed to break down carbon dioxide to form ethylene, ethanol and propanol.

Overpotential refers to the amount of extra voltage needed to drive a chemical reaction in excess of the thermodynamic potential of the products of that reaction. The lower the overpotential, the more efficient the catalyst is. The team estimated that if the catalyst were incorporated into an electrolyzer as part of a solar fuel system, a material only 10 cm² could produce about 1.3 grams of ethylene, 0.8 grams of ethanol and 0.2 grams of propanol per day.