Sustainable materials for CO2 capture and conversion

 

Sustainable materials for CO₂ capture and conversion

Date: 15^th October, 2024 (Tuesday)

Prof. Cafer T. Yavuz

 

Oxide & Organic Nanomaterials for Energy & Environment (ONE) Laboratory

Chemistry Program, Physical Science & Engineering (PSE)

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)

 

Cafer T. Yavuz received his Ph.D. from Rice University in 2008 with a Welch scholarship and was a postdoc at UCSB (2008–2010). He worked at KAIST from 2010-2020. Currently, he is a professor of chemistry at KAUST with a research focus on nano and porous materials design and synthesis for applications in the environment, particularly for CO₂ capture and conversion.

 

Earth’s carbon cycle needs large scale CO₂ capture, storage and conversion to accommodate the excess emissions. A sustainable circular carbon economy would require new pathways and materials since the current technologies and CO₂ market are far too insufficient [1]. In our attempt for CO₂ capture, we developed amine based porous organic polymers for chemisorptive capture [2] and clathrates for physisorptive CO₂ removal [3]. To store the excess CO₂, we studied CO₂ fixation with emphasis on non-redox chemistry for rapid applications like point of use and vehicles, redox conversions for large scale sequestration [4]. For the non-redox CO₂ fixation into cyclic carbonates, we developed a new imidazolinium catalyst forming a Lewis acid/base pair that catalyzes even ambient pressure CO₂ without any need for solvents, co-catalysts or metals. [5] We found that a redox path of dry reforming of methane (DRM) could provide more than 10 gigatons of CO₂ removal, a 2050 target set by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. For DRM, we developed a Ni-Mo-MgO nanocatalyst (NiMoCat) that runs over 850 hours of continuous activity, a record for nanocatalysts without coking or sintering [6]. We identified a novel mechanism that requires nanocatalysts to be on single crystal edges (NOSCE). NiMoCat also works with higher hydrocarbons, even pyrolysis products from plastics and food waste, leading to a circularity for low carbon fuel production.

[1] H. A. Patel, J. Byun, C. T. Yavuz, ChemSusChem, 10, 1303-1317 (2017).

[2] T. S. Nguyen, et al., Acc. Chem. Res., 56, 19, 2642–2652 (2023).

[3] Z. Xiang, et al., Cell Rep. Phys. Sci., 4, 5, 101383 (2023).

[4] S. Subramanian et al., ACS Energy Lett., 5, 1689-1700 (2020).

[5] S. Subramanian et al., Chem, 5, 3232-3242 (2019).

[6] Y. Song et al., Science, 367, 777-781 (2020).