Iranian scientists simultaneously convert carbon dioxide, methane to useful chemicals

Iranian researchers succeeded in the simultaneous conversion of carbon dioxide and methane to useful chemicals at low temperature through photocatalytic reaction by using titanium dioxide nanoparticles deposited on stainless net. CO2 and CH4 are considered as the most important greenhouse gases and they play an important role in increasing the problems caused by greenhouse effect and also in global warming. The simultaneous decomposition of CO2 and CH4 can be suggested as an appropriate solution to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. Among the methods that decompose the stable molecules of CO2 and CH4, those that operate at lower temperatures are most favored. Semi-conductive catalysts have recently attracted the attention of scientists due to their photocatalytic activity to initiate and carry out reduction-oxidation (redox) reactions. The conversion of CO2 is a reduction reaction while the conversion of CH4 is an oxidation one. The use of ultraviolet light to overcome the thermodynamic ban in some undesirable reactions can be useful from the thermodynamic points of view. In this research, the simultaneous conversion of carbon dioxide and methane to useful chemicals at high temperature through photocatalytic reaction was investigated by using titanium dioxide nanoparticles deposited on stainless net. Results showed that the photocatalytic system produced in this research had very desirable performance at laboratorial scale. It is considered an important step towards the production of a photoreaction with the ability to convert carbon dioxide and atmospheric methane to chemicals at industrial scale. Results of the research have been published in details in March 2013 in Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, vol. 44, issue 2, pp. 239-246.