Recently, our institute's research group on photo driven carbon neutrality has made significant progress in the controllable preparation of photo thermal catalytic materials and the high-value conversion of carbon dioxide. The related work "Natural Sunlight-Driven CO₂ Hydrogenation into Light Olefins at Ambient Pressure over Bifunctional Cu-Promoted CoFe Alloy Catalyst" was published with Hebei University as the main research institution in Advanced Functional Materials (DOI: 10.1002/adfm. 202400798). Dr. Ning Shangbo and Wang Junwei and Wu Xiuting are co first authors of the paper, while Professor Ye Jinhua, Researcher Li Yaguang, and Dr. Ning Shangbo are co corresponding authors.

Global industrialization inevitably leads to the widespread use of fossil fuels, with CO₂ being released into the atmosphere in large quantities, resulting in serious environmental impacts. Low carbon olefins (C_2-4=) play a crucial role as major chemical feedstocks in a variety of fields such as petrochemicals, energy production and pharmaceuticals, and the production of low-carbon olefins using catalytic conversion of CO₂ reveals significant potential. However, the thermally driven catalytic CO₂ hydrogenation to obtain low-carbon olefins in industry requires continuous high energy dissipation, and it is significant to utilize clean solar energy to drive the atmospheric pressure conversion of CO₂ to high-value C₂₊ products. This research designs a dual functional Cu-promoted CoFe alloy catalyst for simulating solar driven photothermal conversion devices, achieving photocatalytic CO₂ hydrogenation to low-carbon olefins. The dual functional design of the catalyst combines the synergistic effect of metal Cu and CoFe alloy, improving the performance of CO₂ hydrogenation to multi carbon products. Experimental and theoretical calculations have confirmed that Cu additives play a crucial role in enhancing CO₂ adsorption and hydrogen overflow, while CoFe alloys promote C-C coupling to C_2-4 olefin products. This work provides new insights into the design and implementation of dual functional catalysts for high value-added conversion of CO₂, and opens up new possibilities for sustainable utilization of solar energy.

The above work has been strongly supported by the Regional Innovation and Development Joint Fund, Hebei Natural Science Foundation, China Postdoctoral Fund, Hebei University Talent Project, Fuzhou University Energy and Environment State Key Laboratory Open Fund and other projects.

Natural Sunlight-Driven CO2Hydrogenation into Light Olefins at Ambient Pressure over Bifunctional Cu-Promoted CoFe Alloy Catalyst.pdf

Link:https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202400798