Benzhen Yao

With mounting concerns over climate change, the utilisation or conversion of carbon dioxide into sustainable, synthetic hydrocarbons fuels, most notably for transportation purposes, continues to attract worldwide interest. This is particularly true in the search for sustainable or renewable aviation fuels. These offer considerable potential since, instead of consuming fossil crude oil, the fuels are produced from carbon dioxide using sustainable renewable hydrogen and energy. We report here a synthetic protocol to the fixation of carbon dioxide by converting it directly into aviation jet fuel using novel, inexpensive iron-based catalysts. We prepare the Fe-Mn-K catalyst by the so-called Organic Combustion Method, and the catalyst shows a carbon dioxide conversion through hydrogenation to hydrocarbons in the aviation jet fuel range of 38.2%, with a yield of 17.2%, and a selectivity of 47.8%, and with an attendant low carbon monoxide (5.6%) and methane selectivity (10.4%). The conversion reaction also produces light olefins ethylene, propylene, and butenes, totalling a yield of 8.7%, which are important raw materials for the petrochemical industry and are presently also only obtained from fossil crude oil. As this carbon dioxide is extracted from air, and re-emitted from jet fuels when combusted in flight, the overall effect is a carbon-neutral fuel. This contrasts with jet fuels produced from hydrocarbon fossil sources where the combustion process unlocks the fossil carbon and places it into the atmosphere, in longevity, as aerial carbon - carbon dioxide.

Microwave-stimulated catalytic dehydrogenation of fossil hydrocarbon fuels allows for the rapid production and safe storage of hydrogen.

Abstract Hydrogen as an energy carrier promises a sustainable energy revolution. However, one of the greatest challenges for any future hydrogen economy is the necessity for large scale hydrogen production not involving concurrent CO 2 production. The high intrinsic hydrogen content of liquid‐range alkane hydrocarbons (including diesel) offers a potential route to CO 2 ‐free hydrogen production through their catalytic deep dehydrogenation. We report here a means of rapidly liberating high‐purity hydrogen by microwave‐promoted catalytic dehydrogenation of liquid alkanes using Fe and Ni particles supported on silicon carbide. A H 2 production selectivity from all evolved gases of some 98 %, is achieved with less than a fraction of a percent of adventitious CO and CO 2 . The major co‐product is solid, elemental carbon.

With the rapid development of industrial society and humankind’s prosperity, the growing demands of global energy, mainly based on the combustion of hydrocarbon fossil fuels, has become one of the most severe challenges all over the world. It is estimated that fossil fuel consumption continues to grow with an annual increase rate of 1.3%, which has seriously affected the natural environment through the emission of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide (CO 2 ). Given these recognized environmental concerns, it is imperative to develop clean technologies for converting captured CO 2 to high-valued chemicals, one of which is value-added hydrocarbons. In this article, environmental effects due to CO 2 emission are discussed and various routes for CO 2 hydrogenation to hydrocarbons including light olefins, fuel oils (gasoline and jet fuel), and aromatics are comprehensively elaborated. Our emphasis is on catalyst development. In addition, we present an outlook that summarizes the research challenges and opportunities associated with the hydrogenation of CO 2 to hydrocarbon products.