Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
9/18/2015
A catalytic material known to show potential for capturing carbon can also be adapted for the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) into carbon monoxide (CO), a value-added product, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found. The research focuses on adapting covalent organic frameworks (COFs) to efficiently reduce CO2 into CO. “This work shows that materials that have been used predominantly for carbon capture technologies can be adapted to perform carbon dioxide reduction catalysis as well with high efficiency and durability, even in water,” Christopher Chang, co-leader of the study, told GHG Monitor this week.
COFs are porous crystalline frameworks. The researchers selected COFs as the catalyst of choice for their study for three reasons. “We reasoned that such materials could potentially combine advantages of both molecular and heterogeneous catalysts: Construction with molecular building blocks would enable precise manipulation of the spatial arrangement of catalytic centers within the predetermined COF structure; the frameworks could be expanded and functionalized without changing the underlying topology of the structure; and the conserved pore environment around the active sites within the COF could be tuned electronically and sterically while providing ready access for the substrate,” according to the study, published late last week in the journal Science.
While research into the use of COFs for carbon capture processes is fairly new, research into the use of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a complementary material, has been more extensive. This MOF research speaks well to the potential use of COFs in carbon capture use and carbon storage. “The related class of materials, MOFs, have emerged as promising materials for carbon capture and storage, so COFs also share this same potential for similar applications. In principle, such materials can capture carbon from any of these [carbon emitting] sources,” Chang said.
At this point, Chang and his team have discovered great promise in the use of COFs to reduce CO2 to CO, but the researchers won’t stop there. “We are pursuing ways to make a wider variety of value-added products using COFs and related materials, improving efficiencies in terms of energy input, coupling to solar power, and combining with carbon capture technologies,” Chang said.
