Catalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide with a Hydrogen Fuel Cell

This paper reports the catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to methanol achieved with a hydrogen fuel cell. This process involves a homogeneous and a heterogeneous catalysis. In the former, the catalyst consisting of a metal complex and methanol were applied, and in the latter Everitt's salt (K{sub 2}Fe{sup II}(Fe{sup II}(CN{sub 6}))) which functions as an electron relay was used. The initial {ital p}H of the catholyte was fixed at 2, and the {ital p}H of the anolyte was required to be higher than 1.75 for the hydrogen fuel cell with CO{sub 2} as oxidant to be feasible thermodynamically.