syngas

In countries lacking oil reserves, syngas derived from coal or natural gas is critical for making diesel and gasoline fuels.

Moreover, syngas components can be used to make other commodity chemicals.

Methanol, an alcohol that can be made from syngas, is a source of ingredients for producing plastics, synthetic fabrics and pharmaceuticals.

"Syngas is important because it's a platform for the production of a lot of chemicals of mass consumption," said ORNL's Felipe Polo-Garzon, who, with ORNL's Junyan Zhang, led the study published in Nature Communications.

The team improved a reaction called dry reforming of methane that converts methane and carbon dioxide into syngas, a valued mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used by oil and chemical companies worldwide.