Korea Research Foundation: "Utilizing Troublesome Carbon Dioxide as High-Value Chemical Compounds"

A technology has been developed that can convert and utilize carbon dioxide, identified as the main culprit of global warming, into high value-added compounds.

The National Research Foundation of Korea announced on the 31st that Professor Hyo-Young Lee's research team at Sungkyunkwan University succeeded in producing dimethoxymethane from carbon dioxide and methanol using a new visible photocatalyst (a substance that absorbs light in the visible spectrum (400-700nm) to promote chemical reactions).

A diagram illustrating the research achievements of Professor Lee Hyo-young's research team at Sungkyunkwan University. Provided by the National Research Foundation of Korea

Currently, countries around the world are actively conducting research on carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage to prevent global warming.

However, technology development for utilization faces challenges due to limitations in manufacturing high value-added compounds converted from carbon dioxide.

In particular, there is a common recognition that the development of CCU (Carbon Capture Utilization) technology that selectively produces only high-purity compounds without purification and separation of by-products is absolutely crucial.

In this regard, the research team simultaneously promoted the carbon dioxide reduction reaction and methanol oxidation reaction using Hyo-Young Lee’s Blue Titanium Dioxide (a visible photocatalyst composed of titanium dioxide with two crystal phases, with only one phase reduced) catalyst (Ag, W-BTO) and sunlight, producing high-purity dimethoxymethane compounds with almost no by-products remaining.

Dimethoxymethane is a colorless flammable liquid with a low boiling point and viscosity, excellent solubility, and is used as an aviation fuel additive, perfume, resin, adhesive, paint stripper and protective coating, and blending agent.

Hyo-Young Lee’s Blue Titanium Dioxide catalyst was created by doping silver, which promotes carbon dioxide reduction, and tungsten nanoparticles, which promote methanol oxidation, into blue titanium dioxide that can absorb light energy in the ultraviolet to visible light range.

The purity of dimethoxymethane produced using this catalyst reached 92.08%.

Professor Lee Hyo-young. Provided by the National Research Foundation of Korea

Through this research, the team provided a pathway to efficiently produce dimethoxymethane and suggested the possibility of synthesizing high value-added compounds by precise catalyst design that enables carbon dioxide reduction and bonding with other organic molecules.

Additionally, the production of compounds with almost no by-products is expected to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality in the future.

Professor Hyo-Young Lee said, “As the research team produced dimethoxymethane, we expect that attempts at various syntheses will help apply CCU technology, which is considered a major challenge for humanity. Although the research has so far been conducted at the laboratory reaction scale, it is now moving into the demonstration test phase for technology commercialization.”

Meanwhile, the research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea’s mid-career research program. The research results were published on July 18 in the international scientific journal Nature Communications.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.