Researchers at the University of Oxford have developed a method to convert CO2 directly into aviation fuel using a novel, inexpensive iron-based catalyst. The catalyst shows a carbon dioxide conversion through hydrogenation to hydrocarbons in the aviation jet fuel range of 38.2%, with a yield of 17.2%, and a selectivity of 47.8%, and with an attendant low carbon monoxide (5.6%) and methane selectivity (10.4%).
The conversion reaction also produces light olefins—ethylene, propylene, and butenes—totalling a yield of 8.7%. These are important raw materials for the petrochemical industry and are presently also only obtained from fossil crude oil. An open-access paper on their work is published in the journal Nature