Better catalyst for carbon conversion

A porous, crystalline compound can speed up the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide in water.

Omar Yaghi and Christopher Chang at the University of California, Berkeley, and their colleagues used structures called covalent organic frameworks (COFs) — grid-like arrangements of carbon, nitrogen and other light elements — to turn CO₂ into carbon monoxide. COFs containing cobalt resulted in conversion activity that was 60 times higher than that of a molecular cobalt complex that did not contain COFs.

Chemically converting CO₂ into a useful carbon product is a goal for clean energy. Catalysts built using COFs could be tuned further to boost other reactions, the authors say.

Science http://doi.org/6zr (2015)