Clean catalyst for methanol production

A potentially clean, low-cost way to convert carbon dioxide into methanol while reducing harmful by-products like carbon monoxide has been discovered by researchers in America. A team from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, together with colleagues from the Technical University of Denmark, discovered a new nickel-gallium catalyst that converts carbon dioxide into methanol with fewer by-products than the conventional catalyst. “Methanol is processed in huge factories at very high pressures using hydrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from natural gas,” said Felix Studt, lead author of the paper in Nature Chemistry and staff scientist at SLAC. “We are looking for materials that can make methanol from clean sources under low-pressure conditions while generating low amounts of carbon monoxide.” The team’s ultimate goal is to develop a large-scale manufacturing process – methanol is a key ingredient in the production of plastics, adhesives and solvents – that is non-polluting and carbon neutral using clean hydrogen. Studt and colleagues worked to understand methanol synthesis at the molecular level and began the hunt for a new catalyst capable of synthesising the molecule at low pressures using only hydrogen and carbon dioxide using a massive computerised database of promising catalysts at SLAC. “The technique is known as computational materials design,” said Jens Nørskov, professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. “You get ideas for new functional materials based entirely on computer calculations. There is no trial and error in the lab first. You use your insight and enormous computer power to identify new and interesting materials, which can then be tested experimentally.” The current copper, zinc and aluminium catalyst was compared with thousands of other materials in the database, with the little-known compound nickel-gallium proving most promising. Researchers in Denmark then synthesised a solid catalyst from nickel and gallium and conducted experimental tests. The lab tests proved the computer right – at high temperatures, nickel-gallium produced more methanol than conventional copper-zinc-aluminium catalysts, and considerably less of the carbon monoxide by-product. Research will now concentrate on making the process even cleaner, eliminating any pure nickel which affects methanol – and other by-product – output. Discovery of a Ni-Ga catalyst for carbon dioxide reduction to methanol