How Chinese scientists made petrol building blocks with CO2, water and sunlight
A solar-powered process that mimics photosynthesis in plants could be used to produce valuable resources such as fuel, researchers say
Chinese scientists have developed a plant-inspired method to convert carbon dioxide and water into valuable chemicals, such as the building blocks for petrol, by using solar energy.
The team, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said they had developed a material able to store small amounts of electrical energy to help efficiently drive chemical reactions.
When paired with catalysts that converted carbon dioxide into various chemicals, it enabled the solar-driven production of carbon monoxide.
This could be further converted into fuel, offering a possible alternative for hard-to-electrify sectors such as aviation and shipping.
“This work establishes a bioinspired charge reservoir strategy for efficient carbon dioxide photoreduction, providing a universal approach to solar fuel production,” the team wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications last week.