Korean Researchers Develop Breakthrough Catalyst to Turn CO₂ into Clean Fuel Feedstock
- MM24 News Desk
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Credit: Korea Institute of Energy Research
Scientists at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) have created a world-class copper-based catalyst that efficiently transforms carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, a crucial building block for clean synthetic fuels. The new catalyst produces carbon monoxide 1.7 times faster and with 1.5 times higher yield than conventional options, operating stably at the relatively low temperature of 400°C.
The quest for carbon neutrality has found a powerful new ally in a laboratory in South Korea. A research team led by Dr. Kee Young Koo from the Hydrogen Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER) has announced a major advancement in the fight against climate change: a highly efficient catalyst that converts the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into a valuable resource.
This breakthrough, reported by KIER, centers on improving the reverse water–gas shift (RWGS) reaction, a process that turns CO₂ into carbon monoxide (CO), which is a fundamental feedstock for producing synthetic fuels like e-fuels and methanol.
The challenge with the RWGS reaction has always been temperature. While high temperatures above 800 °C are effective for conversion, they require expensive nickel-based catalysts that degrade over time. Lower temperatures are preferable for cost and efficiency, but they often lead to unwanted byproducts like methane.
“The low-temperature CO₂ hydrogenation catalyst technology is a breakthrough achievement that enables the efficient production of carbon monoxide using inexpensive and abundant metals,” stated Dr. Kee Young Koo. The KIER team’s solution was to bypass nickel entirely and develop a superior catalyst using cheap and abundant copper.
Their innovation, a copper–magnesium–iron mixed oxide catalyst, tackles the core weakness of copper, which is its tendency to become unstable and clump together at temperatures around 400 °C. The researchers ingeniously used a layered double hydroxide (LDH) structure—a sandwich-like arrangement of metal layers—to solve this. By incorporating iron and magnesium into this structure, they filled the spaces between copper particles, preventing them from agglomerating and dramatically boosting the catalyst's thermal stability and longevity.
But how does this new catalyst actually perform? The results are striking. At 400 °C, the KIER catalyst achieved a carbon monoxide yield of 33.4% and a formation rate of 223.7 micromoles per gram of catalyst per second. It maintained this high performance stably for more than 100 hours. When compared to commercial copper catalysts, this represents a 1.7-fold increase in formation rate and a 1.5-fold increase in yield. Even more impressive, it outperformed expensive noble metal catalysts like platinum, showing a 2.2-fold higher formation rate and a 1.8-fold higher yield.
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The secret to its superior performance was uncovered through real-time analysis. The research team, according to their findings, discovered that while traditional copper catalysts create formate intermediates during the reaction, their new catalyst bypasses this step entirely. It directly converts CO₂ into CO on its surface. This more direct pathway avoids energy losses and the formation of methane, allowing it to maintain high activity at lower temperatures.
This efficient process makes it a directly applicable technology for producing the key feedstocks needed for the growing sustainable synthetic fuel industry. Dr. Koo emphasized the future impact, saying the team will “continue our research to expand its application to real industrial settings, thereby contributing to the realization of carbon neutrality.”
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