Saudi Arabia’s emissions of CO₂ were estimated to be around 600 million metric tons in 2022 and are expected to increase up to a million metric tons by 2030. The effective capturing and utilization of CO₂ is one of the routes to grab dual benefits; Reduce the Kingdom’s carbon footprint and contribute to the economy by producing value-added chemicals. However, CO₂ conversion via the thermal route is energy intensive which limits its commercialization.

As part of KFUPM’s strategy to contribute to CO₂ mitigation efforts, the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Refining & Advanced Chemicals (IRC-RAC) has designed a solar reactor system that incorporates a novel nanomaterial that can efficiently convert CO₂ to natural gas using sunlight and solar thermal energy.

The efficiency of the developed technology was enhanced by equipping the reactor with internal reflecting mirrors that minimize losses in light intensity. In addition, the nanomaterial was designed to have a rod-like morphology to increase CO₂ conversion towards hydrocarbon products.

The developed process represents an energy-efficient route for converting CO₂ to hydrocarbons by taking advantage of Saudi Arabia’s abundant availability of solar energy, in terms of its intensity and availability, around the year. We expect that such technology would contribute to the Kingdom’s circular carbon economy and open the way to the sustainable use of hydrocarbon fuels.