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Electrochemical CO2 Utilisation
CO2 Capture & Utilisation
CO2 Capture & Utilisation
CO2 Capture & Utilisation
CO2 Capture & Utilisation
Power production from combustion of fossil fuels releases CO2, which is mainly responsible for global warming and cause severe problems to both ecology and human beings. The rise in atmospheric CO2 levels must be slowed or reverted to avoid undesirable climate change. Materials capable of cost-effective CO2 conversion into chemicals and fuels would help in stabilizing the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas. The potential products can be obtained with CO2 conversion are formic acid, methanol, CO and ethylene. At present there is no commercially viable process for the conversion of CO2 to useful chemicals and the current state-of-the-art materials are expensive, which limit commercial implementation. For example, although several materials are known for the electrochemical conversion of CO2, until now only precious metals such as Au and Ag could promote this process with Faradaic efficiency more than 80%. Because of the durability and poisoning effect many efficient catalysts are far beyond commercialization. We strategically focus on the synthesis of nanomaterials in various forms (metals, bimetals, alloys, intermetallic, core shell etc.) and study their efficiency in the photochemical, electrochemical and heterogeneous conversion of CO2 into fuel and chemicals. The reaction mechanism and kinteics are completely understood by a detailed electronic structure calculations. Our materials and methods are expected to have the potential to convert waste CO2 to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and industrial chemicals.
Power production from combustion of fossil fuels releases CO2, which is mainly responsible for global warming and cause severe problems to both ecology and human beings. The rise in atmospheric CO2 levels must be slowed or reverted to avoid undesirable climate change. Materials capable of cost-effective CO2 conversion into chemicals and fuels would help in stabilizing the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gas. The potential products can be obtained with CO2 conversion are formic acid, methanol, CO and ethylene. At present there is no commercially viable process for the conversion of CO2 to useful chemicals and the current state-of-the-art materials are expensive, which limit commercial implementation. For example, although several materials are known for the electrochemical conversion of CO2, until now only precious metals such as Au and Ag could promote this process with Faradaic efficiency more than 80%. Because of the durability and poisoning effect many efficient catalysts are far beyond commercialization. We strategically focus on the synthesis of nanomaterials in various forms (metals, bimetals, alloys, intermetallic, core shell etc.) and study their efficiency in the photochemical, electrochemical and heterogeneous conversion of CO2 into fuel and chemicals. The reaction mechanism and kinteics are completely understood by a detailed electronic structure calculations. Our materials and methods are expected to have the potential to convert waste CO2 to produce gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and industrial chemicals.
Latest News
Electrochemical CO2 Utilisation
The increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is a great concern for living beings in the earth because of global warming and health related issues. To decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by substantial amount it is important to trap and convert it to useful product. To convert CO2 to other chemicals we have to activate the strong C=O bond. To activate this bond, we need large amount of energy. So, we need a catalyst that can decrease this activation barrier. In case of electrochemical reduction, we apply an external potential to the catalyst to increase the energy of the electrons of catalyst to reduce the CO2 molecule. We are in search of catalysts that will selectively give one product with very high reaction rate (high current density) at low potential. Currently we are working on different metal-based alloy and intermetallic, metal carbides, metal chalcogenide, single atom catalyst and we are able to convert CO2 to useful products like CO, HCOOH, CH3OH, CH3COOH, C2H5OH etc. For industrialization we need current density of above 200 mA/cm2. To achieve this current density, we have changed our reaction setup from H-cell to flow cell in gas diffusion electrode (GDE) configuration that helped to overcome the low solubility of CO2 in aqueous medium in H-cell which limits the current density.
