A New Strategy for Greenhouse Gas Utilization: CO₂ Conversion to Formate in Water With Renewable Biomass

Abstract

It is a long-term goal to convert CO₂ into useful compounds with renewable materials. Herein, we report the first approach to reduce CO₂ with renewable biomass; namely, CO₂/NaHCO₃ can be efficiently reduced into formate by biomass, leading to a high yield (76%) of formate. It was found that the NaHCO₃/CO₂ enhanced the conversion of carbohydrate to value-added carboxylic acids, while CO₂ was reduced to formate by hydrogen from water splitting. This work opened a new door for CO₂ sequestration and formate production. Furthermore, since biomass stores chemical energy from solar energy, the biomass-reduction of CO₂ can be considered as an efficient indirect solar-to-chemicals conversion approach.