Pollution from home furnaces, fireplaces, and industrial plants releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air every day. The gas is a major contributor to climate change, yet once it enters the atmosphere, it becomes difficult and costly to capture. Now, researchers say they have developed a new technology that could help address the problem closer to its source.
In a study published in ACS Energy Letters, scientists describe a new type of electrode that can pull carbon dioxide directly from exhaust gases and even from ambient air. Unlike most existing systems, the device does more than capture the gas. It converts carbon dioxide into formic acid, a widely used industrial chemical.
Why conversion matters as much as capture
Formic acid is used in fuel cells, chemical manufacturing, and food processing. Turning a harmful greenhouse gas into a valuable product could make carbon capture more practical and economically attractive, researchers say.
Capturing carbon dioxide alone is not the main challenge. Plants do it naturally through photosynthesis. The difficulty lies in what comes next. To be useful at scale, captured carbon dioxide must be converted into something valuable.
That task becomes even harder under real industrial conditions. In exhaust from furnaces and power plants, carbon dioxide is mixed with other gases, including nitrogen and oxygen.
Most current conversion systems work efficiently only after carbon dioxide has been separated and concentrated. That extra step adds cost, energy use, and technical complexity, limiting their real-world application.
Designing a system for real-world exhaust
To overcome these barriers, Donglai Pan, Myoung Hwan Oh, Wonyong Choi, and their colleagues set out to design a system that could operate under realistic conditions. Their goal was to handle flue gas as it is actually produced and convert even small amounts of carbon dioxide into a useful chemical.
Rather than relying on purified carbon dioxide, the team focused on building a device that could work directly with mixed exhaust gases.
How the electrode works
The result is an electrode that performs several functions at once. Exhaust gas flows directly through the device, where carbon dioxide is captured and converted simultaneously.
The electrode has a three-layer structure. One layer captures carbon dioxide as the gas passes through. Beneath it sits a sheet of gas-permeable carbon paper that allows exhaust gases to move efficiently. The final layer contains tin(IV) oxide, which acts as a catalyst to drive the chemical conversion.
Scientists have developed a new device that pulls carbon dioxide from factory exhaust—and even from the air—and turns it into a useful chemical.
Instead of just capturing pollution, the technology reuses it, offering a simpler path to carbon reduction. pic.twitter.com/lLMvo8tkA5— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) January 30, 2026
Together, these layers allow carbon dioxide gas to be converted directly into formic acid. By integrating capture and conversion into a single step, the design avoids the need for complex preprocessing.
“This work shows that carbon capture and conversion do not need to be treated as separate steps,” said Choi, a corresponding author of the study. By integrating both functions into a single electrode, they demonstrate a simpler pathway for carbon dioxide use under realistic gas conditions.
Strong performance under realistic conditions
Laboratory tests showed strong performance. When exposed to pure carbon dioxide, the new electrode achieved about 40 percent higher efficiency than existing carbon conversion electrodes under similar conditions.
The advantage became even clearer under more realistic scenarios. Researchers tested the system using simulated flue gas containing 15 percent carbon dioxide, along with oxygen and nitrogen. While most existing technologies produced little or no usable product, the new electrode continued to generate substantial amounts of formic acid.
Potential beyond the laboratory
The device also worked at carbon dioxide concentrations similar to those found in ambient air. That result suggests the system could operate outside tightly controlled industrial environments.
Researchers say the findings point toward a practical path for integrating carbon capture into real industrial settings. Because the system does not rely on highly concentrated carbon dioxide, it could be easier to deploy using existing infrastructure.
The team adds that the same design principles could eventually be adapted to other greenhouse gases. With further development, similar electrodes may be able to capture and convert gases such as methane.
While additional testing will be needed before the technology can be used outside the laboratory, the study highlights a broader shift in carbon management. Rather than simply storing captured emissions, researchers are increasingly focused on turning pollution into something useful.