DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.ecat.2023.014
Publication date: 10th October 2023
It is becoming likely that a net carbon-zero future will rely on the recycling of atmospheric CO2 to produce sustainable fuels and chemicals. Nevertheless, current processes for CO2 utilization use concentrated CO2 streams and are not integrated with the capture of dilute CO2 sources. As a result, the integration of carbon capture with utilization technologies is paramount toward developing processes for a future net-zero carbon economy. At the same time, recycling of waste plastics is critical to protect our environment from irreversible damages. In this regard, the integration of a carbon capture and utilization (CCU) process with plastic valorization technologies represents a unique opportunity to enable the recycling of two separate waste streams (CO2 and plastic) in a unified process, ideally driven by a renewable energy source.
This talk will discuss our developed integrated CO2 capture and photoelectrochemical (PEC) utilization reactor that captures CO2 from dilute streams and directly converts it into synthesis gas (a precursor for industrial liquid fuels and chemicals syntheses) using sunlight as the sole energy input. The reactor operates by combining CO2-to-fuel reduction at a photocathode with selective oxidation of waste plastic-derived ethylene glycol (EG) to glycolic acid (GA) at the anode, which has applications in the pharmaceutical, food, and textile industries. The reactor captures CO2 in an aqueous amine or glycolic hydroxide solution and the subsequent PEC conversion occurs in a two-compartment, two-electrode setup with a triple cation perovskite-based photocathode. Captured CO2 reduction is enabled by an immobilized molecular Co-phthalocyanine catalyst at the photocathode. A bimetallic Cu26Pd74 alloy anode completes the circuit by catalyzing EG oxidation. Replacing anodic water oxidation with EG oxidation makes the demanding captured CO2 reduction feasible with only sunlight, enabling the system to function even with a single visible-light absorber without any externally applied voltage. The overall process uses flue gas/air as a carbon source, discarded plastic waste as an electron donor, and sunlight as the sole energy input, opening avenues for future carbon-neutral/negative solar fuel and waste upcycling technologies.[1]
This work was supported by the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative (SAERI) research fellowship of Weizmann Institute of Science (to S.K.), UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant Ref: EP/X023370/1 to S.K.), the European Commission Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual European Fellowships (GAN 839763 to M.R. and GAN 745604 to S.R.), the Cambridge Trust (Vice-Chancellor’s Award to V.A. and HRH The Prince of Wales Commonwealth Scholarship to S.B.), the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability and St John’s College (Title A Research Fellowship to V.A.), the UKRI Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas, EP/S025308/1 to E.R.) and the Hermann and Marianne Straniak Stiftung (to E.R.).
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.