Carbon dioxide can be harvested from smokestacks and used to create commercially valuable chemicals thanks to a novel compound developed by a scientific collaboration led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kyriakos Stylianou.
Published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, the study shows that the new metal organic framework, loaded with a common industrial chemical, propylene oxide, can catalyze the production of cyclic carbonates while scrubbing CO2 from factory flue gases.
Cyclic carbonates are a class of compounds with great industrial interest, meaning the findings are a boost for green-economy initiatives because they show useful products such as battery electrolytes and pharmaceutical precursors can be derived from the same process deployed to clean emissions from manufacturing facilities.
“These are very exciting findings,” said Stylianou. “We’ve taken a big step toward solving a crucial challenge associated with the hoped-for circular carbon economy by developing an effective catalyst.”
The College of Science and the OSU Honors College funded the study.
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