Abstract
Although carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) have been converted into hydrocarbons, ranging from pentane (C5H12) to octadecane (C18H38) through an artificial photosynthesis reaction catalyzed by nanostructured Co/CoO, the mechanism of the reaction is not very clear. In this work, the isotope effect of carbon is studied by conducting the 13C/12C competition experiments using an equal molar ratio of 13CO2 and 12CO2 as the reagents. It is shown that the dissociation of 12CO2 is easier than that of 13CO2, and the same carbon isotope atoms have a relatively higher probability to bond together to form the hydrocarbon chains. The quantum mechanical analysis of the observed isotope effect helps us to better understand the mechanism for hydrocarbon synthesis.
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