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

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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.