Overview
- The team used hydrogenolysis to break long polyolefin chains and steer products into C8–C16 hydrocarbons, the range used in aviation fuel.
- Lab tests reported roughly an 82.3% liquid product yield and about 79% selectivity for C8–C16 alkanes under relatively mild reaction conditions.
- A custom cobalt–nickel catalyst appears to activate hydrogen and selectively cleave internal carbon bonds, which prevents the over-fragmentation that previously produced light gases instead of liquids.
- Researchers say switching from costly noble metals to cobalt and nickel could lower material costs and a life-cycle assessment shows up to about an 80% greenhouse-gas reduction when the process is powered by renewables.
- Major barriers to commercial use remain: scaling from lab reactors to industrial plants, designing reactors and robust pre-treatment to remove contaminants that can rapidly poison the metal catalyst; industry pilots exist but practical deployment is not yet demonstrated.