MIT assistant professor of chemistry and the senior researcher on a new study Yogesh Surendranath said that the new catalyst takes the process only through its first stage for the conversion of CO2.
Surendranath said: “The problem in CO2 conversion is how to selectively convert it.”
The new system developed by MIT is aimed at addressing selective, specific conversion pathway.
It helps in consistently converting CO2 into a single end-product that can then be further processed into the desired material.
Surendranath said: “And if the hydrogen and CO are produced using solar or wind-generated power, the entire process could be carbon neutral.”
The research team has also developed a tunable catalyst in the form of a highly porous silver electrode material.
He said: “What you want is a tunable catalyst.”
The exact formulation of the electrode material will offer a possibility to design variations of the catalyst.
The researchers found that the tuning of the dimensions of the material’s pores could enable the system to produce the desired proportion of CO in the end-product.
Surendranath said: “You can tune the pore dimensions to tune the selectivity and activity of the catalyst, without modifying the surface active site chemistry.”
According to the researcher, making of porous material involves depositing tiny polystyrene beads on a conductive electrode substrate, electrodepositing silver on the surface and dissolving away the beads.
He added: “The study’s results provide fundamental insights that may be applicable to designing other catalyst materials for fuel production from CO2.”
