Artifacts that arise from adventitious carbon contamination of catalysts used in the electrochemical, photochemical and thermochemical reduction of CO2 to synthetic chemicals and fuels (www.advancedsciencenews.com), especially at low total conversions and low conversion rates, can only be authenticated through rigorous 13CO2 isotope-labeling proof-of-product experimentation to avoid the reporting of artifacts. Similarly, in the reduction of N2 to ammonia in aqueous solution using the aforementioned approaches, one must be equally diligent to apply strong checks to prevent the reporting of false-positives that can originate from impurities in the catalysts and N2 feed gas, and which require robust 15N2 isotope labeling to ensure unequivocal identification of the source of the ammonia.
Graphic image courtesy of Chenxi Qian.
The full article can be read on the Advanced Science News website.