Cheap catalyst could help turn carbon dioxide into fuels

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By ROBERT F. SERVICE, Science. 

Excerpt: Molybdenum compound offers an efficient way to make carbon monoxide—a building block of chemicals and fuels. Imagine if carbon dioxide (CO2)—the primary cause of global warming—could be collected from smokestacks and turned back into fuel. Now, chemists report the discovery of a potentially cheap and stable catalyst that can efficiently split CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO), a molecular starting point for plastics, diesel, and jet fuels. Because renewable electricity can power these reactions, the catalyst could help make commodity chemicals without burning fossil fuels. It could also help create a market for the vast amounts of CO2 that companies are planning on capturing not just from smokestacks, but from the ocean and air.... 

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