Publication date: 21st July 2025
One of the alternatives to decrease CO2 emissions at the atmosphere is carbon capture and utilization. In this context, selective catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 is one of the possibilities being considered, since it is assumed that green hydrogen will be widely available, for instance, from water electrolysis. Among the various products that can be obtained in this process, long chain hydrocarbons and alcohols are the products with the highest economic value. While, reverse water gas shift can convert CO2 into CO and, in a second step, methanol synthesis or Fischer-Tropsch synthesis can produce alcohols through mature technologies, this is a two-step process that consumes considerable energy and it could be more advantageous the direct selective hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol.
Within this context, our group has been working on the photocatalytic CO2 hydrogenation using a variety of photocatalysts based on supported metal nanoparticles. Depending on the support, the process can be either photothermal, or it can be photocatalytic through a charge separated state or a combination of the two. However, all the cases the products formed are CH4 or CO. However, using certain photocatalysts and adjusting the reaction conditions it has been possible to obtain photocatalytically mixtures of methanol and formic acid. Their formation has been firmly confirmed by isotopic 13C label experiments recording 1H NMR spectroscopy, in which the singlets corresponding to the H-C bonds in both chemicals become splitting with a JC-H coupling constant in accordance with the C atomic hybridization. Figure 1 shows some of these 1H NMR spectra. The final goal is the use of natural sunlight to promote the photocatalytic CO2 reduction to methanol in a way that could be economically competitive with the thermo catalytic process.
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.