DIMPEL CAT · Diamond and Metal Photo-Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution and Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Diamond and Metal Photo-Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Evolution and Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Climate change, increased energy demand, and greenhouse gases have major impacts on the environment. Following the recent International Climate Change conferences in Paris and Glasgow, many nations have initiated measures to fulfil their agreements to reduce carbon emissions and promote renewable energy. In addition, EU Horizon 2020 has the major priority to invest funds in development of secure, clean and efficient energy methods. In particular, greenhouse gases have major impacts on the environment which has led researchers to find alternative sustainable energy sources (e.g. hydrogen), and ways to convert greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide to valuable chemicals. Therefore, there is a strong incentive to develop alternative, sustainable catalysts based on cheap, earth abundant materials. The material developed in this action and in the long term (more than 10 years) will help in recycling carbon dioxide to other useful chemicals and production of hydrogen at ambient conditions. This will further help in reaching net-zero carbon emissions, the target set by several countries, and also the European Union. This project further decreases the cost of the use of expensive metals such as platinum, and complexes containing ruthenium, a rare earth metal, which requires high energy mining and purification methods while deeply affecting natural habitats and the environment. In this project, we explored the use of diamonds as nano materials which can release electrons into solution upon illumination; the electrons can be used by transition metal complexes tethered on the diamond surface for the production of hydrogen and to convert carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals such as CO and formic acid. This project had two major research objectives: (i) To develop novel catalysts with diamonds and transition metal complexes (TMCs) as photo- and electro- catalysts for hydrogen evolution and carbon dioxide reduction. (ii) To get deep understanding of the functioning and degradation of these catalysts through mechanistic studies.

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