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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.
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Solid State Chemistry and Catalysis Lab
Prof. Sebastian C. Peter
Photochemical CO2 Utilisation
The renewable electricity powered such as solar energy Carbon dioxide Reduction (CO2RR) offers a means to store intermittent electricity as a dispatchable fuels and valuable chemical feedstocks. The SCP group Photocatalysis team has a primary research interest to develop and understanding of low cost, industrially viable inorganic semiconductor which can harnessing CO2 from atmosphere and convert it into valuable chemical feedstocks. The group mainly undertakes fundamental scientific research in Solid State Chemistry and Photochemistry and try to combine both regime and triggers a new way of research in development of new material that can be able to photo-reduce the CO2 in three pathways:
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Photocatalytic
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Photo-electrocatalytic
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Photo-thermocatalytic
One of the main branches of this kind of research requires using of Transient Photoluminescence Spectroscopy, In-situ IR and Raman spectroscopy, Surface Photovoltage (SPV), EPR etc. to probe the actual mechanistic pathway and to track the pathway of photoexcited electron to understand the energy transfer in relevant pathway. The study mainly employs the fundamental concept of Solid-State Chemistry in order to design new strategy of Photocatalytic and Photo-electrocatalytic CO2 reduction and study their interface mechanism.
