Nature inspires greener generation of metal hydrides to make formic acid from CO₂

An electrocatalytic method has been developed that can generate metal hydrides more cleanly and efficiently. The researchers then used the hydrides to reduce carbon dioxide to formic acid, a high value-added commodity chemical.

‘We were inspired by the efficiency of enzymes,’ explains Victor Mougel from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, who led the study. In nature, many different enzymes catalyse proton-electron transfers, the type of reactions that yield hydrides. ‘In particular, an iron–iron hydrogenase that follows a concerted mechanism … it transfers both a proton and an electron together … to generate the metal hydride,’ he says. And it works thanks to one of the most common catalytic cores in living organisms – the iron–sulfur cubic cluster. Mougel’s team maintained this motif as a mediator.