Light-activated catalyst makes syngas greener

Abstract

Synthesis gas, or syngas, is a feedstock for multiple industrial processes, including the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. Syngas is a mixture of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. Gasification plants, which make syngas from coal, natural gas, and other sources, use catalysts to break apart fuels at around 800 °C. Naomi Halas and coworkers at Rice University have now come up with a greener way to make syngas (Nat. Energy 2020, DOI: 10.1038/s41560-019-0517-9). Using light to activate a nanoparticle catalyst made of copper antennas and single ruthenium atom reactor sites, the team was able to make syngas at around 200 °C. Their system is stable up to 50 h with 99% selectivity. Current industrial syngas catalysts are less robust because they’re susceptible to coking, a C–C bond-forming process that leads to the growth of a carbonaceous material that can block active sites and poison the catalyst. “By having isolated