ゴミを宝に：廃棄物と太陽光からクリーン燃料を作る(Trash into treasure: making clean fuel from waste and sunlight)

2024-10-09 ケンブリッジ大学

＜関連情報＞

• https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/making-fuel-from-sunlight
• https://www.nature.com/articles/s44160-022-00196-0

プラスチック同時改質を伴う光電気化学的CO2-燃料変換 Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming

Subhajit Bhattacharjee,Motiar Rahaman,Virgil Andrei,Melanie Miller,Santiago Rodríguez-Jiménez,Erwin Lam,Chanon Pornrungroj &Erwin Reisner
Nature Synthesis  Published:09 January 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-022-00196-0

Abstract

Solar-driven conversion of CO₂ and plastics into value-added products provides a potential sustainable route towards a circular economy, but their simultaneous conversion in an integrated process is challenging. Here we introduce a versatile photoelectrochemical platform for CO₂ conversion that is coupled to the reforming of plastic. The perovskite-based photocathode enables the integration of different CO₂-reduction catalysts such as a molecular cobalt porphyrin, a Cu₉₁In₉ alloy and formate dehydrogenase enzyme, which produce CO, syngas and formate, respectively. The Cu₂₇Pd₇₃ alloy anode selectively reforms polyethylene terephthalate plastics into glycolate in alkaline solution. The overall single-light-absorber photoelectrochemical system operates with the help of an internal chemical bias and under zero applied voltage. The system performs similarly to bias-free, dual-light absorber tandems and shows about 10‒100-fold higher production rates than those of photocatalytic suspension processes. This finding demonstrates efficient photoelectrochemical CO₂-to-fuel production coupled to plastic-to-chemical conversion as a promising and sustainable technology powered by sunlight.