Hybrid nanomaterials for efficient catalytic conversion of carbon dioxide into fuels and value-added chemicals

二氧化碳是导致全球变暖的最丰富的温室气体。必须加紧努力降低大气中的二氧化碳含量，以防止大规模生态灾难。碳利用将大气中或工业工厂中的二氧化碳直接转化为燃料、药品和聚合物等有用产品的技术是一个快速发展的领域，它增加了对碳减排战略的经济激励，并绕过了对化石燃料的需求。有效利用碳的核心是活化二氧化碳分子进行进一步反应。这可以通过使用纳米电催化技术来实现，该技术将纳米材料的独特催化性能与电能输入相结合，可持续地产生有价值的产品。 为此，我们的目标是协同开发混合有机-金属纳米催化剂和反应过程，将它们与具有气体扩散工作电极的最先进的电化学流动电池反应器相结合，这在二氧化碳还原领域中尚未得到充分探索。这种电池和电极设计显著提高了CO2的可用性，克服了传统电化学电池中存在的溶解度和传质限制，并且是实现高反应选择性、电流密度和电流效率的有前途的平台。将该平台与合理设计的稳定，选择性和高效的电催化剂相结合，有可能实现系统性能的进步，使该技术适合工业应用。此外，通过研究特定的纳米催化剂特征，包括形状，表面化学，手性和材料如何影响催化反应参数，我们将获得未来催化剂设计的指导原则，并为材料科学带来新的策略，为其他重要的催化过程产生有效的催化剂。 我们的工作将产生新的催化材料，平台和工艺，以有效地将过量的二氧化碳转化为燃料，化学原料和药物，同时提供对纳米催化剂上电催化反应机制的更深入的机械理解。最终，这将激发二氧化碳化学的创新，同时为在源头和大气中捕获排放提供更强的激励。这项在STEM最令人兴奋的领域之一的研究计划将启动初露头角的科学家的职业生涯，同时为解决一个关键而紧迫的全球问题做出贡献。

Carbon dioxide is the most abundant greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Efforts to mitigate the atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide need to be intensified in order to prevent mass ecological disasters. Carbon utilization the technology where carbon dioxide in the atmosphere or from industrial plants is directly converted into useful products such as fuels, pharmaceuticals and polymers is a rapidly growing field, which increases the economic incentive towards carbon mitigation strategies and bypasses the need for fossil fuels. Central to effective carbon utilization is the activation of the carbon dioxide molecule towards further reaction. This can be achieved using nanoelectrocatalysis a technology, which combines the unique catalytic properties of nanomaterials with electrical energy input to sustainably generate valuable products. To this end, we aim to synergistically develop hybrid organic-metal nanocatalysts and reaction processes, integrating them with a state of the art electrochemical flow cell reactor with a gas diffusion working electrode, which has been underexplored in the carbon dioxide reduction field. This cell and electrode design significantly increases CO2 availability, overcoming its solubility and mass transport limitations present in traditional electrochemical cells, and is a promising platform to achieve high reaction selectivity, current densities, and current efficiencies. Combining this platform with rationally designed stable, selective, and efficient electrocatalysts has the potential to achieve the system performance advances that would make this technology suitable for industrial implementation. Additionally, by studying how specific nanocatalyst features including shape, surface chemistry, chirality and material impact catalytic reaction parameters, we will obtain guiding principles for future catalyst design and bring new strategies in materials science to generate efficient catalysts for other important catalytic processes. Our work will yield new catalytic materials, platforms, and processes to effectively transform excess carbon dioxide into fuels, chemical feedstocks, and pharmaceuticals while providing a deeper mechanistic understanding of mechanisms of electrocatalytic reactions on nanocatalysts. Ultimately, this will spark innovations in carbon dioxide chemistry while providing a stronger incentive for the capture of emissions at the source and in the atmosphere. This research program in one of the most exciting fields in STEM will launch the careers of budding scientists while contributing a solution to a crucial and pressing global problem.