Project Listing

Photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical reactions are crucial in various transformations for different applications in Environmental and Energy Science as hydrogen production or CO2 valorization. However, most of the catalysts or photocatalysts used for these reactions are expensive, not sufficiently efficient or need very high quantity of solvents making their use not sustainable from an energetic point of view. this project will be focused on the synthesis, characterization and study of the catalytic and photocatalytic properties of novel systems based on immobilized nanomaterials, which are able to enhance the effectiveness and applicability of these heterogeneous systems for catalytic or photocatalytic green hydrogen production by different methods which may be useful as alternative to the current methods of energy production. In addition, this project will also be focused on the search of novel nanosystems which may store and transform in valuable chemicals different gases such as CO2 or hydrogen under mild conditions.

Carbon dioxide capture, storage and conversion to different chemicals is a topic of high interest due to the great number of emissions of this gas in energy production. The adsorption and conversion of CO2 by the action of different heterogeneous catalysts, photocatalysts and/or electrocatalysts may be an alternative solution to lower CO2 emissions coming from the energy generation cycle. The current transformations of CO2 by catalytic reactions are usually leading to C1-chemicals such as methanol, formaldehyde or formic acid among others, however, much less has been developed for the conversion to other valuable chemicals such as hydrocarbons (ethylene or propylene) or different oxygenated products (ethanol or propanol) of interest for the alcohol industry. This project will be focused on the synthesis and characterization of multifunctional hybrid nanomaterials decorated with chemical and enzymatic catalytic sites for CO2 adsorption and cascade chemo-enzymatic transformation to different chemicals of interest for the industry