New CO₂ conversion system slashes energy use and triples formic acid production [View all]

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-revolutionary-conversion-energy-triples-formic.html

A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled a novel electrochemical system that converts carbon dioxide (CO₂ , a major contributor to climate change, into high-value chemical products, like formic acid. This new approach drastically reduces energy consumption by nearly 75% and triples the production rates compared to existing methods.

Led by Professor Seungho Cho in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, alongside Professors Youngkook Kwon and Jae Sung Lee from the School of Energy Chemical Engineering, the researchers have successfully developed an ultra-low voltage electrochemical process for transforming CO₂ into formic acid.This innovative system not only lowers the energy required for CO₂ conversion, but also effectively reduces greenhouse gases while producing a high-demand chemical. Conventional processes rely on an oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which consumes 70 to 90% of the total energy consumption and causes the system's operating voltage to rise up to 2 V.

To overcome this challenge, the team replaced OER with a formaldehyde oxidation reaction (FOR). This new setup can generate formic acid efficiently at an ultra-low cell voltage of 0.5 V, with Faradaic efficiencies of 96.1% at the cathode and 82.1% at the anode. Lowering the operating voltage to just a quarter of traditional systems significantly reduces power consumption.