Real-time movies show catalyst at work
March 22, 2023 – Copper is the only catalyst known to transform atmospheric carbon dioxide into long-carbon-chain molecules for fuel and chemicals. However, more understanding is required to reliably produce desirable products with higher yields. Now, Yao Yang, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Peidong Yang, co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute at Berkeley, has made a key breakthrough. Prior to coming to Berkeley, Yang studied with Kavli Institute at Cornell co-director David Muller, who developed an electron microscopy technique that enables him to examine individual atoms. In a collaboration between the two Kavli Institutes, Yang invented a specialized liquid cell that enabled him to use the electron microscope to image how copper catalyzes CO2 to form longer carbon chains. These movies show where the catalyst is most active and offer insights into ways to rationally engineer them to improve their specificity. This is of critical interest to Peidong Yang’s group in particular, where researchers are developing ways to use solar energy to drive CO2 reactions.
Original title: From Movies of Catalysts to Carbon in Soil
Author: Alan S. Brown, The Kavli Foundation, Kavli Nanoscience Institute