Dynamic carbon overlayered CuCo alloy promotes syngas to higher alcohols
Abstract
Syngas (CO/H ₂ ), sourced from coal, biomass, and shale gas, plays a crucial role in producing a wide range of industrially essential hydrocarbons and oxygenates through Fischer–Tropsch synthesis and its variations. Despite extensive research dating back nearly a century, transforming syngas into higher alcohols remains challenging due to issues with low selectivity and catalyst instability. Generally, more than 50% of CO in typical syngas conversions yields unwanted hydrocarbons, mainly alkanes. Herein, we develop a catalyst integrating a Mo ₂ C-matrix-supported CuCo alloy with hydrophobic graphitic carbon overlayers, achieving 80% selectivity toward value-added alcohols and olefins, of which 59% are higher alcohols, while limiting alkanes to around 10%. The overlayers dynamically participate in the reaction through carbon consumption and replenishment, generating carbon-overlayer-derived CH x species that form an asymmetrically polarised coupling pair with CO-derived intermediates, thereby lowering the barrier for CO insertion and diverting CO from deoxygenation pathways leading to alkane and coke formation. Consequently, the yield of value-added products reaches four times that of typical benchmarks at 80% CO conversion with long-term stability. This work represents a substantial advance in higher alcohol synthesis and sheds new light on the catalytic role of surface carbon in syngas conversion.
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BibTeX
@article{liu2026dynamic,
title = {{Dynamic carbon overlayered CuCo alloy promotes syngas to higher alcohols}},
author = {Jia Liu and Si-Wei Ying and Jiachang Zuo and Qiuyue Zhang and Shan Gao and Xuelian Liang and Xinping Duan and Jing Ren and Yufei Zhao and Mingshu Chen and Linmin Ye and Su-Yuan Xie and Jian-Wei Zheng and Youzhu Yuan},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78203-7},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78203-7},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Dynamic carbon overlayered CuCo alloy promotes syngas to higher alcohols
AU - Jia Liu
AU - Si-Wei Ying
AU - Jiachang Zuo
AU - Qiuyue Zhang
AU - Shan Gao
AU - Xuelian Liang
AU - Xinping Duan
AU - Jing Ren
AU - Yufei Zhao
AU - Mingshu Chen
AU - Linmin Ye
AU - Su-Yuan Xie
AU - Jian-Wei Zheng
AU - Youzhu Yuan
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78203-7
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78203-7
AB - Syngas (CO/H ₂ ), sourced from coal, biomass, and shale gas, plays a crucial role in producing a wide range of industrially essential hydrocarbons and oxygenates through Fischer–Tropsch synthesis and its variations. Despite extensive research dating back nearly a century, transforming syngas into higher alcohols remains challenging due to issues with low selectivity and catalyst instability. Generally, more than 50% of CO in typical syngas conversions yields unwanted hydrocarbons, mainly alkanes. Herein, we develop a catalyst integrating a Mo ₂ C-matrix-supported CuCo alloy with hydrophobic graphitic carbon overlayers, achieving 80% selectivity toward value-added alcohols and olefins, of which 59% are higher alcohols, while limiting alkanes to around 10%. The overlayers dynamically participate in the reaction through carbon consumption and replenishment, generating carbon-overlayer-derived CH x species that form an asymmetrically polarised coupling pair with CO-derived intermediates, thereby lowering the barrier for CO insertion and diverting CO from deoxygenation pathways leading to alkane and coke formation. Consequently, the yield of value-added products reaches four times that of typical benchmarks at 80% CO conversion with long-term stability. This work represents a substantial advance in higher alcohol synthesis and sheds new light on the catalytic role of surface carbon in syngas conversion.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -