Stable catalytic materials for emerging energy conversion technologies and greenhouse gas mitigation

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More than 95% by volume of all products are synthesized by means of catalysis, and as we are entering a world transitioning to alternative energy resources, the key to sustainable development will be to enable such transformations. Catalysts dramatically reduce energy requirements by enabling processes on practical time scales (seconds versus hundreds of years) and they allow target productions with significantly reduced waste generation. Ideally, a catalyst lifetime in a production line should be infinite, but catalysts suffer from deactivation and require frequent replacements. Many of them contain expensive noble metals, and the deactivation compromises economic benefits and increases energy consumption. Our project combines efforts from chemists, materials and chemical engineers to develop a universal strategy for stable catalyst development for real-world applications. With this strategy we will be able to maintain fresh-like properties of active components in catalysts for prolonged periods of time, which translates into an order of magnitude improvement in the production efficiency in terms of reaction rates and decreased energy input. The strategy to be developed is intended to be universal for a wide range of existing and emerging processes, but in the short term we will address i) the emerging technology for CO2 valorization without preliminary costly separation for the ultimate production of ultra-clean alternative fuels and value-added products, and ii) currently economically challenged exhaust treatment system in natural gas vehicles. Both technologies will lead to significant greenhouse gases emission reduction and enable the transition to alternative fuels, such as biogas or waste-derived advanced biofuels.