Transforming carbon dioxide into jet fuel using an organic combustion-synthesized Fe-Mn-K catalyst

Abstract

With mounting concerns over climate change, the utilisation or conversion of carbon dioxide into sustainable, synthetic hydrocarbons fuels, most notably for transportation purposes, continues to attract worldwide interest. This is particularly true in the search for sustainable or renewable aviation fuels. These offer considerable potential since, instead of consuming fossil crude oil, the fuels are produced from carbon dioxide using sustainable renewable hydrogen and energy. We report here a synthetic protocol to the fixation of carbon dioxide by converting it directly into aviation jet fuel using novel, inexpensive iron-based catalysts. We prepare the Fe-Mn-K catalyst by the so-called Organic Combustion Method, and the catalyst shows a carbon dioxide conversion through hydrogenation to hydrocarbons in the aviation jet fuel range of 38.2%, with a yield of 17.2%, and a selectivity of 47.8%, and with an attendant low carbon monoxide (5.6%) and methane selectivity (10.4%). The conversion reaction also produces light olefins ethylene, propylene, and butenes, totalling a yield of 8.7%, which are important raw materials for the petrochemical industry and are presently also only obtained from fossil crude oil. As this carbon dioxide is extracted from air, and re-emitted from jet fuels when combusted in flight, the overall effect is a carbon-neutral fuel. This contrasts with jet fuels produced from hydrocarbon fossil sources where the combustion process unlocks the fossil carbon and places it into the atmosphere, in longevity, as aerial carbon - carbon dioxide.

Influence of Phase Composition and Pretreatment on the Conversion of Iron Oxides into Iron Carbides in Syngas Atmospheres

“…Calcination in air at 400 • C for 10 min yields ferrihydrite films (FH) with a well-ordered mesoporous structure and low crystallinity, whereas calcination at 550 • C for 10 min forms a highly crystalline hematite film (HEM). Maghemite films (MAGH) are obtained after a heat treatment of the mesophase in N 2 at 350 • C for 5 h. Partial reduced maghemite/magnetite films (MAGH/MAGN) form after a heat treatment in N 2 at 400 • C for 2 h followed by a reduction in H 2 /Ar at 350 • C for 1 h. as low accessibility, pronounced agglomeration or ill-defined particle shapes which were shown to cause difficulties in the studies of in situ surface reactions [14,15,[26][27][28].…”

“…Beyond that, the authors revealed the formation of carbonaceous intermediate species on the surface of Hägg iron (χ-Fe 5 C 2 ) carbides, which are claimed to be more active for the CO 2 -FTS [9]. Moreover, Yao et al, reported the use of syngas treatments prior to CO 2 -FTS as an elegant way to activate the catalysts [14]. A comprehensive review on syngas-induced carbide formation, related iron oxide and carbide phases, challenges in material characterization, and deactivation mechanisms has been reported by de Smit and Weckhuysen in 2008 [11].…”

“…The as-synthesized ordered mesoporous films enable a precise investigation of bulk-averaged information (e.g., XRD) and study of local changes in the phase composition, i.e., domain growth on the nanometer scale using microscope methods such as SEM, TEM, and SAED. Beyond that, thin mesoporous iron oxide films can avoid the shortcomings of typical nanoparticles such as low accessibility, pronounced agglomeration or ill-defined particle shapes which were shown to cause difficulties in the studies of in situ surface reactions [14,15,[26][27][28].…”

CO2 Activation Within a Superalkali-Doped Fullerene

“…(Hu et al, 2013). The activation of CO 2 is extremely complex due to its stability and much efforts have been made by researchers to directly convert it into liquid hydrocarbons, useful for the aviation sector as novel jet fuels (Boreriboon et al, 2018;Vogt et al, 2019;Yao et al, 2020) or into oxygenates, such as ethanol. (Song et al, 2016;Bai et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2018).…”

“…This conversion, whether it involves a direct CO 2 hydrogenation route or not, entails the usage of metal-based catalysts to ensure an overall reasonable efficiency. (Yao et al, 2020).…”