Analytical validation in catalytic CO2 conversion: Product identification, carbon accounting, and evidence for process performance
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Reliably evaluating catalytic CO2 conversion requires distinct evidence for product identity, quantity, carbon origin, carbon accounting, and process performance. This critical narrative review compares those requirements across electrochemical, photocatalytic, and thermocatalytic conversion, with plasma-assisted hydrogenation as a methodological comparison. A five-step assessment traces the inference, alternative explanation, discriminating evidence, shared measurement dependencies, and remaining conclusion. Published cases distinguish product formation from carbon-source attribution, catalytic selectivity from carbon disposition, and repeatability from transferable performance. For a published plasma-only condition, subtraction and direct analysis differ by approximately 34 percentage points in methanol selectivity; differing collection windows limit attribution to one cause. Constructed calculations show how shared calibration and independent reactor uncertainty affect catalyst rankings differently, and how rankings can reverse when energy is expressed per recovered rather than formed product. The synthesis treats chromatography, quantitative NMR, isotope analysis, sampling recovery, flow measurement, and uncertainty as connected parts of the measurement procedure. The synthesis distinguishes contradictory evidence, insufficient experiments, and restricted source access. Priorities are independent tests of residual allocations, validation of representative collection pathways, matched operating intervals, and staged interlaboratory comparisons. The assessment is an applied interpretive procedure, not a validated scoring instrument.
Source: ChemRxiv
Author: Eugene Oga
Institution: University of North Dakota
Language: English
Subfield: Catalysis
Field: Chemical Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223347059