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。需要加紧努力降低大气中的二氧化碳水平，以防止大规模生态灾难。碳利用将大气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增长的领域，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二氧化碳分子的进一步反应活化。这可以使用纳米电催化来实现，这是一种将纳米材料独特的催化性能与电能输入相结合的技术，以可持续地产生有价值的产品。 为此，我们的目标是协同开发有机-金属纳米催化剂和反应过程，将它们与最先进的带有气体扩散工作电极的电化学流动电池反应器相结合，这在二氧化碳还原领域一直没有得到充分的探索。这种电池和电极设计显著提高了二氧化碳的利用率，克服了传统电化学电池中存在的溶解性和传质限制，是实现高反应选择性、电流密度和电流效率的一个有前途的平台。将该平台与设计合理、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，使该技术适合工业化实施。此外，通过研究特定的纳米催化剂特性，包括形状、表面化学、手性和材料对催化反应参数的影响，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生成高效的催化剂。 我们的工作将产生新的催化材料、平台和工艺，有效地将多余的二氧化碳转化为燃料、化学原料和药品，同时提供对纳米催化剂上电催化反应机理的更深层次的理解。最终，这将引发二氧化碳化学方面的创新，同时为从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出茅庐的科学家的职业生涯，同时为一个关键和紧迫的全球问题提供解决方案。

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.