The reaction of reducing CO2 emitted when burning fossil resources with electric energy has been energetically studied at home and abroad from the viewpoints of both reducing CO2 emissions and creating resources, but most of them are pure CO2. I used it.However, since the exhaust gas emitted from thermal power plants, steel mills, cement manufacturing plants, etc. contains only a few percent to a dozen percent of CO2, the conventional technology required a process of enriching CO2 with a large amount of energy.Therefore, there has been a demand for a method that can efficiently reduce only CO2 by using the gas containing the dilute concentration of CO2 that is actually emitted as it is.

　The researchers found that rhenium complexes, which have the property of capturing CO2, function as electrochemical catalysts that reduce low concentrations of CO2.This complex has the function of collecting only CO2 with high efficiency from a gas containing only a low concentration of CO2.The collected CO2 is immobilized on the complex as a carbonic acid ester.It was found that by using the rhenium complex that captured this CO2 as an electrochemical catalyst, even low-concentration CO2 can be reduced as it is.

　This discovery will save energy in the manufacturing process and contribute to the control of global warming.In the future, the company plans to further improve the CO2 capture capacity of this new catalyst and aim to develop practical technology with a view to using base metal complexes, which are common metals.

Paper information:[Chemical Science] Electrocatalytic reduction of low concentration CO2