Reviewed by Laura ThomsonFeb 20 2025
According to a study published in Nature Nanotechnology, two researchers from Oregon State University may soon be able to create methanol more quickly and efficiently. Methanol is crucial for the production of many common commodities as well as for its potential for green energy.
OSU College of Engineering's Zhenxing Feng and Alvin Chang contributed to characterizing a novel electrocatalyst created by Yale University collaborators. It helped explain the increased efficiency of methanol extraction from carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas primarily to blame for climate change.
The National Science Foundation and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture funded the study.
The researchers' dual-site catalyst is a major advancement over earlier single-site catalysts. It is created by joining two distinct catalytic sites on carbon nanotubes at nearby regions separated by roughly two nanometers.
With a 50% better Faradaic efficiency and a higher rate of methanol synthesis, the new design wastes less electricity necessary to catalyze the reaction. Less than 30% of the prior single-site version was operational.
Methanol is a flexible chemical feedstock that is used for hundreds of common products including plastics, chemicals, and solvents. It is also a promising green fuel that can be produced from harmful carbon emissions using renewable electrical energy via a process called electrochemical CO2 reduction, simultaneously helping with environmental challenges and energy demands.
Alvin Chang, Doctoral Student, Oregon State University
Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is a relatively clean-burning substance that can be used in fuel cells, as an alternative to gasoline in internal combustion engines, as a fuel for ships, and to generate electricity.
According to the researchers, methanol can be produced from agricultural and municipal waste, in addition to carbon dioxide, which is primarily released into the atmosphere by the combustion of fossil fuels. This indicates that it has the potential to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support a transition to more environmentally friendly energy sources.
A catalyst increases the rate of a chemical reaction without being consumed by it. In contrast, an electrocatalyst is a material that accelerates an electrochemical reaction by lowering the activation energy.
Feng, an associate professor at OSU, stated that cobalt phthalocyanine molecules supported on carbon nanotubes are among the few molecules capable of catalyzing the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide into methanol. The earlier version of this catalyst, which had solely cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine molecules as active sites, had a relatively low selectivity for methanol.
Chang explained that the electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction occurs in two phases. Carbon dioxide is first turned into carbon monoxide, which is then transformed into methanol.
Chang added, "The single-site catalyst is limited by a tradeoff. At the optimal potential for catalyzing the carbon monoxide to methanol step, it is not efficient in turning carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide."
The researchers introduced nickel tetramethoxyphtyalocyanine into the system and discovered that it can assist in catalyzing the carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide process, leading to increased methanol production.
The hybrid catalyst was found to exhibit unprecedented high catalytic efficiencies, nearly 1.5 times higher than observed before. Advanced vibrational and X-ray spectroscopy revealed that the improvement is because of a carbon monoxide transfer from a nickel site to a cobalt site on the same carbon nanotube.
Zhenxing Feng, Associate Professor, Oregon State University
The study was conducted by Hailiang Wang of Yale University, and also involved researchers from The Ohio State University and the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.
Journal Reference:
Li, J. et. al. (2025) Molecular-scale CO spillover on a dual-site electrocatalyst enhances methanol production from CO2 reduction. Nature Nanotechnology. doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-01866-8
Source:
Oregon State University