In the field of energy, one of the most promising lines of research today is trying to emulate the natural process of photosynthesis or how plants convert CO2 into energetic sugars with the help of sunlight and water. The objective of the scientists is to decompose that CO2 into oxygen and carbon monoxide (CO) , the latter substance with which fuels such as ethanol can then be easily manufactured. This is how two birds are killed with one stone, since the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main culprit of the greenhouse effect and global warming.
The holy grail of these investigations is to search for a cheap and efficient catalyst substance that can accelerate chemical reactions and decompose the gaseous CO2 molecule in the presence of water and an electric current, coming from a solar cell. In vegetables, certain enzymes do this job.
One of the main candidates is copper oxide or cupric oxide, but it has a problem: it decomposes more water than CO2, which produces too much molecular hydrogen (H2), uninteresting from an energy point of view.
Now a group of experts from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have found a solution. They found that adding a layer of tin – one atom thick – to the copper oxide electrodes gave them almost pure carbon monoxide. 90% of the CO2 molecules were converted into CO . They also discovered that 13.4% of the energy from sunlight was used in this process (the plants barely reach 1% efficiency).
A record , as explained in the journal Nature Energy , which opens new paths in the fight against climate change and the search for alternative energy sources to fossil fuels.
