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Artificial synthesis of carbohydrates from electrochemically fixed carbon dioxide

Nature Synthesis (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Sustainable synthesis of C5+ carbohydrates from CO2 remains challenging due to the complexity of controlled CO2 reduction and carbon–carbon coupling. Biochemical approaches can convert primary CO2 reduction products into C5+ carbohydrates, but are often constrained by lengthy reaction periods, low production rates and system complexity. Here we present a two-step electrochemical reduction–formose reaction method that uses hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMS) as a more stable surrogate for formaldehyde to facilitate the direct synthesis of C5+ carbohydrates from electrochemically fixed CO2. Using cobalt tetraaminophthalocyanine molecules supported on multiwalled carbon nanotubes as an electrocatalyst, we achieve an HMS Faradaic efficiency of ~12% at a total current density of 150 mA cm−2. Employing direct CO reduction increases the Faradaic efficiency to ~25% with over 63% carbon efficiency. The produced HMS enables an efficient formose reaction under mild conditions reaching a yield of 20.4% for C5+ carbohydrates. The CO2-derived HMS also demonstrates its versatility as a formaldehyde surrogate in other reactions for synthesizing various valuable chemical products, promising a new approach for feeding advanced chemical synthesis with electrochemically fixed CO2 via the intercepted formaldehyde intermediate.

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Fig. 1: Comparing different pathways from CO2 to carbohydrates.
Fig. 2: HMS production from CO2 or CO electroreduction in the presence of sulfite.
Fig. 3: Carbohydrate synthesis via the formose reaction of a 17.5 mM HMS solution from CO2 electrolysis.
Fig. 4: Extended application of HMS in various chemical syntheses.

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Data availability

All experimental data supporting the findings of this study are available in the Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Brown Investigator Award (H.W.) and US National Science Foundation (grant number CHE-2154724, H.W.). The flow cell work was supported by the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (H.W.).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Jing Li, Kedang Chen.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Jing Li, Kedang Chen, Jindou Yang, Yuanzuo Gao, Seonjeong Cheon, Yuming Su & Hailiang Wang

  2. Energy Sciences Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT, USA

    Jing Li, Kedang Chen, Jindou Yang, Yuanzuo Gao, Seonjeong Cheon, Yuming Su & Hailiang Wang

  3. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Nathan E. Soland & Peidong Yang

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Contributions

J.L. and H.W. conceived this project and designed the experiments. J.L. and K.C. synthesized the catalyst materials, performed the TEA and LCA and conducted the electrochemical and chemical reactions. Y.S. assisted in some of these experiments. J.Y. carried out the post-reaction separation of carbohydrates. J.L., K.C. and H.W. wrote the manuscript with input from N.E.S. and P.Y. The manuscript was edited by Y.G. and S.C., who also contributed to data analysis. H.W. supervised the project.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Peidong Yang or Hailiang Wang.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information

Nature Synthesis thanks Rong Xia and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editor: Alexandra Groves, in collaboration with the Nature Synthesis team.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–16, Notes 1 and 2 and Tables 1–4.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 2

Electrochemical testing data.

Source Data Fig. 3

Formose reaction and TEA data.

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Li, J., Chen, K., Soland, N.E. et al. Artificial synthesis of carbohydrates from electrochemically fixed carbon dioxide. Nat. Synth (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00961-x

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