Direct conversion of CO and H2O into liquid fuels under mild conditions

Yao Xu; Jing Li; Wenjing Li; Weizhen Li; Xiaochen Zhang; Yue Zhao; Jinglin Xie; Xiaoping Wang; Xi Liu; Yongwang Li; Dequan Xiao; Zhen Yin; Yong Cao; Ding Ma

doi:10.1038/s41467-019-09396-3

Direct conversion of CO and H₂O into liquid fuels under mild conditions

Nat Commun. 2019 Mar 27;10(1):1389. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09396-3.

Authors

Yao Xu¹, Jing Li¹, Wenjing Li¹, Weizhen Li¹, Xiaochen Zhang¹, Yue Zhao¹, Jinglin Xie¹, Xiaoping Wang², Xi Liu², Yongwang Li², Dequan Xiao³, Zhen Yin⁴, Yong Cao⁵, Ding Ma⁶

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering and College of Engineering, and BIC-ESAT, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 165, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030001, PR China & Synfuels China, Beijing, 100195, P. R. China.
³ Center for Integrative Materials Discovery, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of New Haven, 300 Boston Post Road, West Haven, Connecticut, 06516, USA.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin, 300387, China. [email protected].
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. [email protected].
⁶ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering and College of Engineering, and BIC-ESAT, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, P. R. China. [email protected].

Abstract

Although enormous progress has been made in C₁ chemistry and CO₂ conversion in recent years, it is still a challenge to develop new carbon resource transformation protocols especially those lead to the production of liquid fuels with high selectivity under mild conditions (e.g., under low temperature and using benign solvent). Herein, we present a novel and energy-efficient catalytic route to directly transform CO and H₂O to liquid fuels (i.e., liquid hydrocarbons) at low temperature (≤200 °C) in aqueous phase (i.e., in a benign solvent), in which H₂O served as both hydrogen source and solvent for the liquid fuel production. The key to the catalytic process is the construction of a highly efficient tandem catalyst Pt-Mo₂C/C + Ru/C, which can directly convert CO and H₂O in aqueous phase to liquid hydrocarbons with a production rate of 8.7 mol_-CH2- mol_Ru^-1 h^-1 and selectivity up to 68.4% of C₅₊ hydrocarbons at 200 °C.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't