New Catalyst Turns Atmospheric CO₂ Into Ethylene — While Removing 3 Tonnes of Carbon Per Tonne Produced
Ethylene is everywhere. Plastics, packaging, antifreeze, construction materials — over 150 million tonnes are produced globally each year, almost entirely from fossil fuels. Every tonne of ethylene made the conventional way releases roughly a tonne of CO₂. A new process developed at Northwestern University flips that equation. The Breakthrough In a paper published in Nature Synthesis on March 10, researchers led by Ted Sargent describe a bismuth-copper alloy catalyst that converts CO₂ captured from ambient air directly into ethylene through an electrochemical process. ...