Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the major greenhouse gases causing global warming.
Decarbonising has become a prioritised mission in many countries and the science community is working on the “carbon capture” technologies. If the captured carbon dioxide could be converted into energy, then it would be killing two birds with one stone. Mimicking photosynthesis, a joint research team led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a new photocatalyst which can produce methane fuel (CH4) selectively and effectively from carbon dioxide using sunlight. According to their research, the quantity of methane produced was almost doubled in the first 8 hours of the reaction process.
The research was led by Dr Ng Yun-hau, Associate Professor in the School of Energy and Environment (SEE), in collaboration with researchers from Australia, Malaysia and the United Kingdom. Their findings have been recently published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie, titled “Metal-Organic Frameworks Decorated Cuprous Oxide Nanowires for Long-lived Charges Applied in Selective Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction to CH4”.
Read more at: City University of Hong Kong
Dr Ng and his team synthesised a new photocatalyst by enwrapping cuprous oxide with copper-based metal-organic frameworks. (Photo Credit: City University of Hong Kong)
