Carbon-Skeleton Supported Atomic Catalysts
City UHK Researches Work Toward Reducing Carbon Dioxide
Kalin Ned — November 13, 2025A research initiative at the City University of Hong Kong — also known as City UHK — is focused on the theoretical development of a novel class of electrocatalysts designed to convert carbon dioxide into valuable multi-carbon compounds. The project, which is headed by Bolong Huang and within the scope of the Department of Chemistry, centers on creating atomic catalysts, where individual metal atoms are anchored onto a carbon-based support structure known as graphdiyne. The objective is to use advanced computational modeling and machine learning to understand and predict how these catalysts can efficiently drive the chemical reactions that transform CO2 into substances like ethylene or ethanol, which are referred to as C2 products due to their two-carbon atom structure.
City UHK researchers aim to establish a theoretical framework that could later guide the physical creation of such catalysts.