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Reactor engineering for converting CO2 to solid carbon

Nature Chemical Engineering volume 3, pages 82–86 (2026)Cite this article

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Converting CO2 into solid carbon materials provides both long-term carbon sequestration and the production of value-added products. This Comment compares reactor configurations guided by thermodynamic analysis, evaluates the market volume and morphology control of different carbon products, and identifies hurdles and opportunities for scaled-up deployment.

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Fig. 1: Thermodynamic analysis of H2 and alkane-assisted CO2 sequestration into C(s).
Fig. 2: Converting CO2 into multiple solid carbon materials.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, & Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (grant number DE-FG02-13ER16381). S.G. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (grant number DGE-2036197).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yong Yuan, Samay Garg.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA

    Yong Yuan & Jingguang G. Chen

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Samay Garg & Jingguang G. Chen

Authors
  1. Yong Yuan
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  2. Samay Garg
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  3. Jingguang G. Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jingguang G. Chen.

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Competing interests

Columbia University, representing J.G.C. and S.G., has filed two patent applications regarding the conversion of CO2 and biogas to carbon nanofibers.

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Nature Chemical Engineering thanks Kun Jiang, Yanwei Lum and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Yuan, Y., Garg, S. & Chen, J.G. Reactor engineering for converting CO2 to solid carbon. Nat Chem Eng 3, 82–86 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44286-026-00359-2

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