Catalyst eases fuel production

A catalyst could improve the manufacture of methanol, a promising fuel for renewable energy, from carbon dioxide. Current methods require high pressures or generate carbon monoxide, an undesirable by-product.

Jens Nørskov at Stanford University in California and his colleagues modelled the chemical reduction of CO₂ to methanol at ambient pressure and identified nickel–gallium-based compounds as promising catalysts.

The researchers synthesized and tested a series of these catalysts, and found that Ni₅Ga₃ produced the same or larger amounts of methanol compared with conventional catalysts, while also generating less CO, all at ambient pressure.

This catalyst could be used to make methanol as a fuel in, for instance, fuel cells, the authors say.

Nature Chem. http://doi.org/rss (2014)