New Process Turns Captured CO₂ Into Fuel Ingredient Using Less Energy

Researchers have developed a more efficient way to turn carbon dioxide (CO₂) captured from the air into carbon monoxide (CO)—a useful industrial gas that can be used to make fuels, plastics, and other everyday materials. Their new method could make clean energy technologies more affordable and practical at scale.

The study, published in Joule, shows how scientists cut energy use by nearly 40% compared to older methods, while also increasing the amount of usable output. The breakthrough is especially promising for industries working to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and reuse it in a sustainable way.

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The Problem They’re Solving

Capturing CO₂ from the air—known as Direct Air Capture (DAC)—is one of the most talked-about climate solutions. But once you’ve captured the gas, turning it into something useful takes a lot of energy. Traditional systems rely on high heat or electricity, making the process expensive and inefficient.

In most cases, turning CO₂ into CO requires a lot of voltage and still delivers low performance. That’s been a major roadblock—until now.

What’s Different About This Approach

The researchers found a way to make the process more efficient, using three key innovations:

• First, they slightly adjusted the chemical makeup of the captured CO₂ liquid to make the gas easier to work with.

• Second, they used a specially designed material to help speed up the reaction that turns CO₂ into CO.

• Third, they attached that material to a conductive surface in a way that helps electricity move through the system more easily.

Together, these improvements meant the system could create more CO with less energy.

Key Results

The new process uses a lower voltage and achieves 70% efficiency—meaning most of the electricity used is successfully turned into CO. The total energy cost is about 35 gigajoules per ton of CO produced, compared to 59 gigajoules in earlier systems.

Unlike older methods, this one also works at room temperature, which simplifies the setup and reduces costs even further.

Why This Matters

This kind of research is essential for scaling up carbon removal and reuse technologies. If successful at commercial scale, it could allow companies to capture CO₂ from the air and immediately turn it into raw materials for other products—all while keeping energy use low.

It’s a major step toward building a circular carbon economy, where captured emissions are reused instead of released into the atmosphere.

Next Steps

The research team has filed a patent for the technology and says their approach could be adapted for different industrial applications. The work was led by Edward H. Sargent at Northwestern University, with funding from the U.S. Office of Naval Research.