By Beth Miller
Catalysts that convert waste carbon dioxide into valuable products like acetate are designed to run continuously on electricity for the conversion process. But electricity from renewable energy sources, such as solar or hydroelectric power, often runs intermittently, which can damage parts of the catalyst and reduce performance.
An international team of researchers, led by the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, found a method to control powering down the catalyst to prevent damage while operating up to 750 hours without any loss in performance and reducing costs by about 25%. Results of their research were published July 8 in Nature Catalysis.
Much of the experimental work took place in the lab of Feng Jiao, the Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in McKelvey Engineering, led by Wanyu Deng, a formal postdoctoral researcher in Jiao's lab, and Ahryeon Lee, a doctoral student in Jiao's lab.
Jiao said the research was motivated by implementing the technology in different locations around the world that may use renewable energy sources.
"The end goal is how we can develop a system that is more cost-effective to produce the chemicals from carbon dioxide," said Jiao, who also is director of the Center for Carbon Management and deputy director of the National Science Foundation CURB Engineering Research Center.
Their method boosts operation when electricity prices are lower and slows or pauses operations when prices are higher. But powering down the catalyst led to other issues.
Collaborators Yifei Xu and Bingjun Xu at Peking University used in situ Raman spectroscopy to observe the activity on the surface of the catalyst. The team found that repeatedly turning the catalyst on and off degraded the copper-based cathodes, either by accumulating copper carbonate when carbon monoxide was present or oxidizing to copper oxide when argon gas was present.
To prevent this, the team used a controlled power-down strategy where the copper cathode was kept at a minimal operation setting of less than 1% of typical operating current density instead of being fully powered down, which prevented carbonate from forming and copper from oxidizing, Jiao said.
Collaborator William Andrew Goddard III at Caltech is conducting computational modeling to understand the reaction mechanism, how those carbonates and hydroxide form on the surface of the copper catalyst.
"Looking ahead, the next step is to develop even more robust catalyst systems and practical strategies that can be seamlessly integrated into industrial-scale carbon monoxide electrolysis processes," Jiao said. "These advances will be critical for enabling reliable operation with intermittent renewable electricity and accelerating the deployment of sustainable carbon conversion technologies."
Deng W, Lee A, Kwon S, Wang Z, Xu Y, Xing S, Xu B, Rasmussen R, Goddard III WA, Jiao F. Copper-catalyzed carbon monoxide electrolysis under dynamic operation. Nature Catalysis. July 8, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41929-026-01574-z .
Funding for this research was provided by the Gates Foundation (INV-051757); the Liquid Sunlight Alliance which is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0021266); National Science Foundation (2138259, 2138286, 2138307, 2137603 and #2138296); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (RS-2026-25474754).
