DimerCat | DimerCat: Isolated dimers for catalyzing CO2 electroreduction to higher carbon products

Summary
For the first time in human’s history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached the highest level of 415.26 ppm on May 11, 2019. This results in severe climatic change throughout the world. Electrochemical CO2 reduction can convert this harmful CO2 to value-added carbon-based chemicals and is a carbon-neutral method of storing renewable electricity in the form of chemicals.
This proposal aims to investigate carbon catalysts doped with metal-dimers as catalysts for CO2 reduction to higher-carbon (C2) products. Carbon-based catalysts are selected because of their high selectivity towards CO formation and the doped metal dimers are expected to favor the CO-CO coupling leading to the formation of C2 products. This would emulate the functionality of the nitrogenase enzyme, where V-V dimers are able to catalyze the formation of ethylene and other C2 products. The world-leading expertise of Prof. Magda Titirici (host) and Dr. Ifan Stephens; and the vibrant scientific community and state-of-the-art equipment at Imperial College, provide the perfect environment to successfully host my project despite its challenging nature. The deep expertise I have acquired during my Ph.D., in nanosynthesis and in-situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy of electrocatalysts would strongly complement my hosts’ expertise in carbon synthesis and operando testing. The bottleneck in the catalytic cycle will be identified and addressed. This new fundamental understanding will not only empower the scientific community but also enable the development of efficient electrocatalyst for higher-carbon product formation during CO2 reduction. Secondment will be carried out at Johnson Matthey that would allow us to scale-up the technology, developed at Imperial. Thus, the proposed project will try to solve the three major challenges of catalyst design, selectivity, and scalability and would equip me with scientific, technical and managerial skills to become a leading independent researcher.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/896637
Start date: 19-10-2020
End date: 18-10-2022
Total budget - Public funding: 212 933,76 Euro - 212 933,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

For the first time in human’s history, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached the highest level of 415.26 ppm on May 11, 2019. This results in severe climatic change throughout the world. Electrochemical CO2 reduction can convert this harmful CO2 to value-added carbon-based chemicals and is a carbon-neutral method of storing renewable electricity in the form of chemicals.
This proposal aims to investigate carbon catalysts doped with metal-dimers as catalysts for CO2 reduction to higher-carbon (C2) products. Carbon-based catalysts are selected because of their high selectivity towards CO formation and the doped metal dimers are expected to favor the CO-CO coupling leading to the formation of C2 products. This would emulate the functionality of the nitrogenase enzyme, where V-V dimers are able to catalyze the formation of ethylene and other C2 products. The world-leading expertise of Prof. Magda Titirici (host) and Dr. Ifan Stephens; and the vibrant scientific community and state-of-the-art equipment at Imperial College, provide the perfect environment to successfully host my project despite its challenging nature. The deep expertise I have acquired during my Ph.D., in nanosynthesis and in-situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy of electrocatalysts would strongly complement my hosts’ expertise in carbon synthesis and operando testing. The bottleneck in the catalytic cycle will be identified and addressed. This new fundamental understanding will not only empower the scientific community but also enable the development of efficient electrocatalyst for higher-carbon product formation during CO2 reduction. Secondment will be carried out at Johnson Matthey that would allow us to scale-up the technology, developed at Imperial. Thus, the proposed project will try to solve the three major challenges of catalyst design, selectivity, and scalability and would equip me with scientific, technical and managerial skills to become a leading independent researcher.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2019

Update Date

28-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
MSCA-IF-2019