Direct production of useful fuel from the emitted carbon dioxide has been one of major challenges in industries. We here report a novel approach in which ethanol could simply be synthesized under negative DC corona discharge at 1 atm and 105 degrees C. The experimental results have shown that CO2 and H2O could be reduced mainly into ethanol with yield of 4.7% without applying any metal catalyst. And with increase of total feeding pressure of gases, the yield appears to rise. The mechanism of electron attachment on those gaseous molecules creating accelerated anions might be the key of CO2 and H2O reduction reaction. This finding also implies that it might be feasible to use of negative corona discharge and CO2 as only carbon source with steam as only source of hydrogen to produce energy-dense ethanol fuel, also possibly leading to electric energy storage. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.