Ask A Scientist Chemistry Archive

Question:
What is the most efficient way to crack carbon dioxide to
produce carbon monoxide?  And what is the preferred variant
of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (or related technologies) for 
producing hydrocarbons from CO?
 cgettlee

Answer:
Again, this is a pretty specialized question....
The most popular way to make CO2 out of CO is
to use a metal surface as a catalyst (to speed
things up)....this is how the catalytic converted
in your car works. I think platinum is particularly
effective as a catalyst. The mechanism is still
a little in doubt but I believe it works by bringing
chemically-absorbed (chemisorbed) O2 into close
proximity with physisorbed CO to form physisorbed CO2,
which is so weakly bound that it tends to fly off.
 
Basically, with regard to your synthesis question, the choice
of a particular synthetic method is based upon the
economics (how expensive are the starting materials)
and the logistics (pollution, separation, etc).
Hydrocarbons are not usually produced from CO, because
natural gas is a cheap source of methane...at least
last I heard, most of our hydrocarbons were being obtained
from non-renewable sources.
 
-dr topper