This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Un nuevo catalizador permite transformar CO2 en materia prima industrial

A new catalyst allows to transform CO2 in industrial prime matter

08/10/2012

8 October 2012

A study in which it has participated the Upper Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC) has developed a new catalyst that allows the transformation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in apt organic products for the industrial use. The results have been published in the magazine Angewandte Chemie.

The catalysts are substances that accelerate the chemical reactions without altering his composition. The catalyst developed in this work, based in a complex of stable iridium to the air, converts of selective form the CO₂ in sililformiatos, some derivatives of the acid fórmico that contain silicious. The acid fórmico, has a lot of applications in the chemical industry, in agriculture, in technology of the foods and in the manufacture of products of leather. The sililformiatos use for the production of polymers of silicones and like prime matter in organic synthesis.

“The development of new selective chemical processes and of high performance would allow a greater economy of natural resources, delete or diminish in the measure of the possible the production of waste, recycle and transform molecules with a negative ecological impact and minimise the energetic cost”, explains the researcher of the CSIC Luis Gold, of the Institute of Chemical Synthesis and Catálisis Homogénea, mixed centre of the CSIC and the University of Saragossa.