THERMO AND PHOTO-CATALYSIS OF CO2 HYDROGENATION: NANOCATALYST DESIGN

10/09/2023

Online Seminar

12:30PM

Letian Wang Amirav’s group, Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion and Zhong’s group, GTIIT

Master Final Seminar

Physical-Chemistry Seminar

Thermo and Photo-catalysis of CO2 Hydrogenation: Nanocatalyst Design

Under supervision of Prof. Lilac Amirav (Technion) and Prof. Ziyi Zhong (GTIIT)

With the increasing emission of the main greenhouse gas (CO2) into the atmosphere, Earth’s global air surface temperature has increased drastically, leading to various extreme weather events. Therefore, it is urgent to develop technologies to decrease the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Heterogeneous catalysis of CO2 hydrogenation to high-value-added chemical products is a promising strategy to achieve the above goals. There are several approaches to conducting the reaction: thermal catalysis, photocatalysis, and photothermal catalysis. To understand and promote CO2 conversion, we first synthesized CuZnO/Al2O3 thermal catalysts for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol under thermal catalytic conditions. In situ DRIFT studies were carried out to reveal the intermediate species presented on the catalyst surface during the reaction; next, we synthesized g-C3N4/In2O3 catalysts for CO2 photoreduction to CO and clarified the main factors that impact the photocatalytic performance. Finally, we explored photothermal synergic CO2 hydrogenation to methanol on designed Au/In2O3 catalysts. These studies have obtained a deep understanding of CO2 activation and conversion.