| AVS 60th International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Accelerating Materials Discovery for Global Competitiveness Focus Topic | Thursday Sessions |
| Session MG-ThA |
| Session: | Theory, Computation and Data-Enabled Scientific Discovery |
| Presenter: | N.H. de Leeuw |
| Authors: | N.H. de Leeuw A. Roldan, University College London, UK N. Hollingsworth, University College London, UK J. Goodall, University College London, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Despite the high thermodynamic stability of CO2, biological systems are capable of both activating the molecule and converting it into a range of organic molecules, all of which under moderate conditions. It is clear that if we were able to emulate Nature and successfully convert CO2 into fuel or useful chemical intermediates, without the need for extreme reaction conditions, the benefits would be enormous: One of the major gases responsible for climate change would become an important feedstock for the fuel, chemical and pharmaceutical industries!
Iron-nickel sulfide membranes formed in the warm, alkaline springs on the Archaean ocean floor are increasingly considered to be the early catalysts for a series of chemical reactions leading to the emergence of life. The anaerobic production of acetate, formaldehyde, amino acids and the nucleic acid bases - the organic precursor molecules of life - are thought to have been catalyzed by small cubane (Fe,Ni)S clusters which are structurally similar to the surfaces of present day sulfide minerals such as greigite (Fe3S4) and mackinawite (FeS).
Contemporary confirmation of the importance of sulfide clusters as catalysts is provided by a number of proteins essential to modern anaerobic life forms, e.g. ferredoxins or (de)hydrogenases, all of which retain cubane (Fe,Ni)S clusters with a greigite-like local structure, either as electron transfer sites or as active sites to metabolise volatiles such as H2, CO and CO2.
We have used a combination of computation, synthesis and electrochemistry to mimic Nature and produce Fe-S and Ni-doped Fe-S nanoparticles to catalyse the conversion of CO2. Careful and sensitive testing of the computationally designed materials, prepared through novel synthesis routes, shows that the nanoparticles have the power to adsorb CO2 and reduce it to formic acid - a useful chemical intermediate. A particularly promising aspect is that the catalytic conversion of CO2 takes place at room pressure and temperature and at the sort of low voltages that could be obtained from solar energy, thus making it a sustainable process.