Manchester MOF Turns CO2 Into CO Using Only Sunlight and Water
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- University of Manchester scientists, led by Professors Martin Schröder and Sihai Yang, developed a cerium-based metal-organic framework (MOF) that converts CO2 and water into carbon monoxide when activated by visible light, as published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (DOI: 10.1021/jacs.5c20721).
- The MOF uses amino-group organic linkers to absorb light, briefly undergoing an electronic change that creates temporary "open" sites in its pores where CO2 molecules bind, react into CO, and release.
- The reversible binding mechanism mimics how specialized enzymes in living systems handle small molecules, applying principles from biology to inorganic materials design.
- In lab experiments the catalyst produced CO "extremely efficiently, with no detectable by-products," outperforming many existing benchmark materials, per the researchers.
- Unlike competing systems, the process requires no precious metals and no added chemicals that get consumed during the reaction, and avoids generating large amounts of hydrogen as an unwanted by-product.
- Schröder framed the work as designing a solid material that "behaves in a similar way" to natural enzymes, while Yang said the findings provide "a clear blueprint for designing next-generation catalysts"—though he stressed the research is "still at a fundamental stage."
Why it matters: CO is a building block for fuels, plastics, and pharmaceuticals, so a catalyst that turns CO2 into CO using only sunlight and water—no precious metals, no sacrificial reagents, no excess hydrogen—gives chemists a cleaner route to upcycle greenhouse gas. Because the Manchester team says it outperforms existing benchmarks and works via a single-product pathway, it sets a concrete performance bar for the next round of MOF-based photocatalysts to beat.
