Professor Na Kyung-su’s research team (Department of Chemistry) at CNU has developed a chemical process technology that can reduce greenhouse gases that cause global warming, making it a hot topic.
The research team of Professor Na studied ways to convert carbon dioxide, the main component of greenhouse gases, and methane gas, which contributes to the formation of greenhouse gases, into an eco-friendly and economical method. This is a technology that directly combines carbon dioxide and methane to synthesize acetic acid.
This process does not utilize expensive hydrogen and converts methane into high value-added compounds through a single process without an external oxidizer, so it has excellent economic feasibility in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the key was how to directly combine carbon dioxide and methane, which do not combine spontaneously in natural conditions.
Overcoming these limitations, the research team succeeded in obtaining acetic acid as a single product by sequentially activating carbon dioxide and methane on the surface of a cheap metal oxide. In particular, it was confirmed that when the activation conditions for carbon dioxide and methane were the same, the productivity of acetic acid was maximized. Next, it was revealed that acetic acid can be continuously obtained by repeating the sequential injection process of carbon dioxide and methane.
In addition, the research team discovered the problem that when the activation process is repeated, the structure of the metal oxide is deformed and its performance decreases, and to improve structural stability, they developed a metal oxide in the form of a core shell covered with a porous silica shell. Using this, the research team proposed a catalyst and reaction process that produces acetic acid while continuously consuming carbon dioxide and methane without deteriorating performance.
This not only designed a system that directly combines and consumes carbon dioxide and methane, the main greenhouse gases, and proved this through theory and experimentation, but also developed a chemical process that can continuously produce acetic acid, a high value-added organic compound, as a single product.
In this study, Professor Na participated as the principal investigator and Kwon Seung-don, a combined master’s and doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry, was the first author, while Professor Ko Kyoung-chul of the Department of Chemistry Education participated as co-researcher. In addition, Yang Hyo-geun, Yoo Young-jae, Choi Yu-yeol (combined master’s and doctoral program), Kim Na-kyung (master’s degree) from the Department of Chemistry, and Kim Gye-hong (doctoral candidate) from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences also participated in the research team.
This research was conducted with the sole support of the C1 Gas Refinery Project promoted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea, and was published in the online edition of Applied Catalysis B: Environment, (IF: 22.1, within the top 1% of JCR), a top journal in the chemical and environmental engineering field.
