Photo2Bio · Photo-Organocatalytic CO2 Valorisation into Bioactive Added-Value Molecules
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-02-01 → 2023-01-31
- EU contribution
- €183,473
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Photo-Organocatalytic CO2 Valorisation into Bioactive Added-Value Molecules
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is naturally present in the Earth's atmosphere. However, over the past century, human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes have greatly increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, leading to a range of environmental and health problems. One of the most significant problems associated with CO2 production is climate change. CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to a warming of the Earth's surface. This warming can cause a severe weather events, and changes to ecosystems that can threaten biodiversity. Overall, the production of CO2 is a major environmental problem that has significant implications for human health as well as the health of the planet. The CO2 reduction is mitigating the effects of climate change as it is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to rising temperatures and changes in weather patterns. CO2 emission form power plants and vehicles, also emit other pollutants that can harm human health. Reducing CO2 emissions can help to improve air quality and reduce the negative health impact of air pollution. Thus, the reducing CO2 emissions provides numerous benefits, including mitigating climate change, improving air quality, enhancing energy security. In this sense, European Union (EU) policies have promoted improvements in resource efficiency, supporting the shift towards a low-carbon economy for a sustainable growth. The main objective of Photo2Bio project is to exploit the potential of visible light photoredox catalysis and organocatalysis for the development of conceptually now and innovative methodologies for the valorisation of CO2 into value added chiral biomolecules which will offer a new platform for the structural complexity in an environmentally benign way.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In my research proposal Photo2Bio, I introduce a conceptually new chemical paradigm for the organocatalytic asymmetric CO2 fixation via synergistic catalysis. This strategy demonstrates its straight to the synthesis of amino acids and diverse complex molecular architectures using renewable sources: light and CO2. The key features of this strategy is to develop a dual catalytic system which can simultaneous activate both coupling partner: the organic substrate and CO2, thus combining two powerful fields of molecular activation: visible light photoredoxcatalysis and organocatalysis. After the development of the discovery phase - development of the dual catalytic system and application to the synthesis of biomolecules - a more applicative execution phase will take place, where organocatalytic magnetic nanoparticles (MN) will be implemented and functionalize to overcome the recovery and catalyst loading issues. This will open the way to environmentally benign industrial applications.The successful development of proposal is ensured by the merging of diverse skills from hosting group at the University of Padova, led by Prof. Marcella Bonchio i) CO2 valorisation, ii) photocatalyst; the ITM-CNR expert in MN Dr. Alberto Figoli: i) magnetic nanoparticle design and assembly and me: i) photoredox catalysis, ii) asymmetric synthesis and reaction development. Funding of the Photo2Bio will generate great benefit not only for academia and industry through the synthesis of chiral biomolecules but also for the society. At short term new sustainable way to bioactive molecules will be accessed; at a long term this will serve to prove the concept that chemistry useful and can solve global warming by the development of sustainable synthetic methods, thus changing the common people perception of chemistry as toxic and/or dangerous. This will be accomplished by a series of large audience initiative and discussions with scientists and common people.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA · PadovaCoordinatorItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union