New Catalyst Transforms Waste Carbon Dioxide into Liquid Methanol

Yale chemist Hailiang Wang and his colleagues report their most recent success in turning industrial emissions of CO₂, a major greenhouse gas causing climate change, into methanol, a common liquid fuel for internal combustion and other engines, in a new study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Yale scientists took a “two-in-one” catalyst that converts waste carbon into liquid methanol. The next crucial step is developing a scalable method to extract carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere and “recirculate” it as a renewable fuel.

Wide-ranging industrial applications could result from the process.

This is a new strategy that brings CO₂ reduction into methanol to a new level.

Hailiang Wang, Study Lead Author and Professor, Chemistry, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Yale University

Wang is a member of both the Yale Energy Sciences Institute and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture.

The chemical reaction that turns CO₂ into methanol happens in two steps. First, carbon monoxide (CO) is created when CO₂ combines with a catalyst. After that, the CO transforms into methanol by a catalytic process.

The most successful earlier method, which Wang’s group also created, used a single catalyst composed of molecules of cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine supported on carbon nanotubes. On this single-site catalyst, however, the two reaction steps are mismatched: the conversion of CO₂ to CO is less selective and efficient, which poses a problem for researchers attempting to develop a reliable procedure that can be expanded for industrial use.

Having just one type of catalytic site was not optimal for both steps in the reaction. To avoid this trade-off, we’ve now designed a ‘two-in-one’ catalyst.

Jing Li, Study First Author and Postdoctoral Associate, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Yale University

To convert CO₂ into CO, the novel method begins with a nickel tetramethoxyphthalocyanine site. To finish the reduction into methanol, the freshly created CO then moves onto a cobalt site, which catalysis scientists call “spillover.”

Our work offers a potentially scalable solution to reduce carbon footprints and accelerate the transition to cleaner energy.

Conor Rooney, Study Co-Author Former Ph.D. Student, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Yale University

Based on research from the Wang lab, Rooney is a creator of Oxylus Energy, a company that collaborates with industry partners to turn carbon waste into methanol liquid fuel.

Seonjeong Cheon, Yuanzuo Gao, Bo Shang, Huan Li, Longtao Ren, and Shize Yang are other Yale co-authors. Yang is the director of Yale's aberration-corrected electron microscopy core facility, a comprehensive lab for materials science research that focuses on electron microscopy and spectroscopy.

Quansong Zhu and Robert Baker from Ohio State University collaborated on the study and contributed experimental proof of CO spillover from the nickel site to the cobalt site. Huan Li, Zhan Jiang, and Yongye Liang from Southern University of Science and Technology, as well as Alvin Chang and Zhenxing Feng from Oregon State University, are additional study collaborators.

The National Science Foundation and the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture provided some funding for the study.

Journal Reference:

Li, J., et al. (2025) Molecular-scale CO spillover on a dual-site electrocatalyst enhances methanol production from CO₂ reduction. Nature Nanotechnology. doi.org/10.1038/s41565-025-01866-8