Projects / Programmes
Carbon Dioxide Reduction Catalysed by Single Atom Catalyst for the Production of Value-Added Chemicals
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 2.04.01 |
Engineering sciences and technologies |
Materials science and technology |
Inorganic nonmetallic materials |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 2.05 |
Engineering and Technology |
Materials engineering |
Single atom catalysis, metal oxides, surface defects, carbon dioxide reduction, 2-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, synchrotron techniques
Data for the last 5 years (citations for the last 10 years) on
April 25, 2024;
A3 for period
2018-2022
Data for ARIS tenders (
04.04.2019 – Programme tender,
archive
)
| Database |
Linked records |
Citations |
Pure citations |
Average pure citations |
| WoS |
291 |
9,798 |
9,359 |
32.16 |
| Scopus |
299 |
10,822 |
10,348 |
34.61 |
Researchers (4)
| no. |
Code |
Name and surname |
Research area |
Role |
Period |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
34949 |
PhD Mattia Fanetti |
Materials science and technology |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
145 |
| 2. |
32783 |
PhD Sandra Gardonio |
Materials science and technology |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
82 |
| 3. |
37524 |
PhD Andraž Mavrič |
Materials science and technology |
Head |
2020 - 2024 |
48 |
| 4. |
11991 |
PhD Matjaž Valant |
Materials science and technology |
Researcher |
2020 - 2024 |
608 |
Organisations (1)
| no. |
Code |
Research organisation |
City |
Registration number |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
1540 |
University of Nova Gorica |
Nova Gorica |
5920884000 |
14,072 |
Abstract
Path towards CO2 neutrality needs to go over reduction of the CO2 emissions. Consequently, the techniques as on-site CO2 capture and CO2 conversion to fuels and chemicals are of extreme interest. Due to high energy that is required for activation of CO2 molecule a product-selective and robust catalyst has to be developed and applied. Of particular interest is the formation of C2 products (ethanol, ethane, ethylene, ethylene glycol…) that are carrying higher energy density and higher economic value compared to the C1 products (methanol, formic acid, methane…). Until now, only the methanol production from CO2 has reached technological maturity with a sufficient selectivity. Whereas, the C2 products are usually formed with low reaction yields mostly as side products of the C1 products. A significant breakthrough in the selectivity of products from the CO2 reduction can be achieved only by understanding the reaction mechanisms, surface structures and active sites. With the goal to promote the C-C bond formation during CO2 reduction and, therefore, favour the formation of the product with a higher economic value, this project will address the development of product-selective heterogeneous catalyst. This will be done by the so-called single-atom-catalysis with the use of homogenously dispersed single atoms or metallic clusters on a modified support. The support modification will be guided by experimental observations of the interactions of the reaction intermediates with the catalyst support. This will be carried out by a 2-dimensional infrared spectroscopy (2D IR). To achieve the C-C bond formation, a high concentration of the CO2 gas and reaction intermediates at the vicinity of the catalyst active sites needs to be achieved. This will be achieved by a smart catalyst design. Firstly, the Cu metal, as a universal CO2 reduction catalyst, will be homogenously dispersed on the metal oxide support. The Cu metal will be dispersed in a form of atomically isolated atoms or nanosize metallic clusters. By engineering of the surface defects on the metal oxide support, we will design Cu anchoring sites to achieve maximal possible coverage. This will allow us to have a short distance between the reaction intermediates at active sites. The stability of such metal decorated surfaces will be carefully studied and surfaces that can give thermodynamically stable metal dispersion will be identified. The concentration of reactants and intermediates will be further increased by application of a thin layer of covalent organic frameworks (COF) or metalorganic frameworks (MOF), for which their nanoporosity, hydrophilic character and variety of possible functional groups will enable to suppress the diffusion of the reaction intermediates from the active sites. The catalyst development will be supported by various advanced materials characterization techniques. The dispersion of the Cu metal on metal oxide surfaces will be characterized by SEM and TEM as well as by AFM and STM. The chemical state and coordination environment will be characterized by use of a photoelectron spectroscopy and an X-ray adsorption spectroscopy with synchrotron radiation. The 2D IR spectroscopy will be employed to identify the intermediates at the catalyst surface as well as their interactions with different parts of the catalyst surface (oxide/metal/functional group of MOF or COF). This information can be directly related to the formation and dissociation of the chemical bonds, making it possible to determine the impact of the interface on inter- and intra-molecular dynamics of the adsorbed species. Together with the identification of the reaction products it will allow us to construct the reaction pathways towards multi-carbon products.
