Nanostructured Photocatalytic Approach to CO_2 Conversion

摘要

Several approaches to stabilize and reduce atmospheric CO_2 concentrations have been tested. While carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been hailed as the most promising approach for sequestering CO_2 safely away from the atmosphere, the technology remains unproven, costly, and will likely not be commercially available for decades. An alternative to CCS is to consider CO_2 as a commodity that can be converted or more specifically recycled into useful and valuable chemicals and/or clean burning fuels. This approach not only reduces or eliminates the amount of CO_2 entering the atmosphere, but it creates a revenue stream to offset the cost of implementation. GoNano Technologies, Inc. has demonstrated a nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO_2) photocatalyst that can be used to selectively convert CO_2 into methane, methanol, formic acid, and/or formaldehyde.