Skip to main content

Great strides for carbon capture using earth-abundant elements as photocatalytic system

Great strides for carbon capture using earth-abundant elements as photocatalytic system :



This is the structure of CuPS, the copper complex that behaves as a redox photosensitizer, and the manganese-based catalyst developed in the study.

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have designed a CO2 reduction method based only on commonly occurring elements. Achieving a 57% overall quantum yield of CO2 reduction products, it is the highest performing system of its kind reported to date, raising prospects for cost-effective carbon capture solutions.
As global warming presents one of the biggest challenges to humanity in the 21st century, the quest to curb mounting CO2emissions is more pressing than ever.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Osamu Ishitani and colleagues at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology report a photocatalytic[1] system that brings scientists closer to achieving artificial photosynthesis -- the goal of creating a sustainable system similar to the way that plants convert CO2 to useful energy by using earth abundant metals.
Although metal-complex photocatalytic systems have been reported for CO2 reduction, many of them used noble- and/or rare-metal complexes. Compared to these approaches that utilize rare metals (such as ruthenium and rhenium), the use of earth abundant metals is "greener" and inexpensive, and has thus attracted much interest.
Their new process is made up of two components: 1) a copper complex (CuPS) that behaves as a redox photosensitizer[2] and 2) a manganese-based catalyst, Mn(4OMe).
CuPS proved to be a stable and efficient redox photosensitizer, as decomposition was only 2% after 12 hours of irradiation. In addition, CuPS exhibited a much stronger reduction capability compared to other photosensitizers investigated to date.
The team reported that the total quantum yield of CO2 reduction products was 57%, the turnover number based on the manganese catalyst was over 1300 and the selectivity of CO2 reduction was 95%.
In particular, the figure of 57% is remarkable, as the researchers comment: "To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest quantum yield for CO2 reduction using abundant elements and the yield would be comparable to that obtained with rare metals."
The study highlights the way that incremental advances in chemistry may have a large impact on the wider goal of working towards a fossil-fuel-free future.
The research was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency's CREST program aimed at accelerating strategic innovation.
Technical terms
[1] Photocatalytic: Referring to a light-driven process that can accelerate a particular reaction of interest.
[2] Redox photosensitizer: A component that initiates the photochemical one-electron transfer from a reductant to a catalyst.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Size matters: New data reveals cell size sparks genome awakening in embryos

Transitions are a hallmark of life. When dormant plants flower in the spring or when a young adult strikes out on their own, there is a shift in control. Similarly, there is a transition during early development when an embryo undergoes biochemical changes, switching from being controlled by maternal molecules to being governed by its own genome. For the first time, a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found in an embryo that activation of its genome does not happen all at once, instead it follows a specific pattern controlled primarily by the various sizes of its cells. The researchers published their results this week as the cover story in  Developmental Cell . In an early embryo undergoing cell division, maternally loaded RNA and proteins regulate the cell cycle. The genomes of the zygote -- a term for the fertilized egg -- are initially in sleep mode. However, at a point in the early life of the embryo, these zygotic nuclei "wake...
Post a Comment
Read more

Home births as safe as hospital births: International study suggests

A large international study led by McMaster University shows that low risk pregnant women who intend to give birth at home have no increased chance of the baby's perinatal or neonatal death compared to other low risk women who intend to give birth in a hospital. The results have been published by  The Lancet 's  EClinicalMedicine  journal. "More women in well-resourced countries are choosing birth at home, but concerns have persisted about their safety," said Eileen Hutton, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster, founding director of the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre and first author of the paper. "This research clearly demonstrates the risk is no different when the birth is intended to be at home or in hospital." The study examined the safety of place of birth by reporting on the risk of death at the time of birth or within the first four weeks, and found no clinically important or statistically different risk between home...
Post a Comment
Read more

Molecular adlayer produced by dissolving water-insoluble nanographene in water

Molecular adlayer produced by dissolving water-insoluble nanographene in water : "Nanographene incorporated micelle capsules" can be prepared by simply pulverizing and mixing nanographene with amphiphilic V-shaped anthracene molecules in water at room temperature. Even though nanographene is insoluble in water and organic solvents, Kumamoto University (KU) and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) researchers have found a way to dissolve it in water. Using "molecular containers" that encapsulate water-insoluble molecules, the researchers developed a formation procedure for a nanographene adlayer, a layer that chemically interacts with the underlying substance, by just mixing the molecular containers and nanographene together in water. The method is expected to be useful for the fabrication and analysis of next-generation functional nanomaterials. Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in sheet form. It is lighter than metal wit...
Post a Comment
Read more