Photoreduction of CO2 into renewable fuels through catalytic membrane reactor

Energy crisis and climate change associated with carbon emissions are two of the most critical global challenges facing humanity. Solar powered reduction of CO2 into green and valuable chemicals and/or fuels is a sustainable approach to simultaneously address these two critical challenges. However, this approach still has some issues to solve, such as low CO2 reduction efficiency, low product yields and low conversion efficiency towards to desirable fuel products. These challenges can be addressed by engineering desirable photocatalysts and designing more effective systems. This project aims to develop high-performance photocatalysts through surface engineering and integrate them into novel membrane reactors for photoreduction of CO2 into renewable fuels. In the project, Prof. Somnath Chanda Roy’s team at IITM will develop surface engineered high-performance photocatalysts through computational design and experimental fabrication. The prepared photocatalysts expect to boost CO2 reduction capabilities by over 75% by surface engineering, such as surface hydrophobicity tailoring. Dr Shuaifei Zhao’s team at Deakin University will integrate the prepared photocatalysts into porous membranes to construct novel catalytic membrane reactors. The innovative catalyst integration and reactor design will further improve the product yields, enhance the desirable fuel conversion and production, and allow easy separation of the product from the membrane reactor.