Research Projects

Utilization of captured CO₂ from point sources of emission as a feedstock to make chemicals is a highly desirable step towards a circular economy. Among the various thermocatalytic routes for CO₂ utilization, hydrogenation to methanol is attractive and heavily investigated as methanol is a liquid fuel, a hydrogen carrier, and a chemical feedstock. While traditional Cu based catalysts for CO₂ reduction to methanol give good CO₂ conversion, the methanol selectivity is poor, and therefore the overall methanol yield is unsatisfactory for single pass commercial processes. The search for active catalysts that inhibit the competitive reverse water gas shift (RWGS) reaction at high temperatures has recently led to great interest in In₂O₃ based catalysts which give substantially higher methanol selectivity at relatively higher temperatures. Moreover, these catalysts also exhibit promise for high stability. Deep fundamental insights on the kinetically relevant pathways for methanol formation and structure activity correlations on these catalysts can be obtained by Density Functional Theory (DFT) based first principles microkinetic analyses. Validated detailed kinetic models capable of predicting catalytic performance across a wide range of reaction conditions are crucial to develop better catalysts and engineer the reaction system for high methanol yield. Hence, this project proposes a careful coupling of complementary experimental and computational investigations to develop a validated DFT based microkinetic model for methanol synthesis from CO₂ on In₂O₃ based catalysts and to optimize operations of a lab scale reactor system for high methanol yield. Light olefins are the backbone of the petrochemical industry and are currently produced in energy and capital intensive cracking based processes of petroleum or natural gas feedstock. An emerging alternative route to olefins is via the reduction of CO₂ which has been demonstrated in lab scale single reactor systems using multifunctional tandem catalysts. Such catalysts combine CO₂ reduction to methanol and methanol conversion to light olefins. Mixing the developed methanol synthesis catalyst together with a well-known methanol to olefins catalyst, SAPO-34, a multifunctional mixed/tandem catalyst for a single stage direct conversion of CO₂ to light olefins will be demonstrated. The nature of integration of the two components of the catalyst and the operating conditions that enable optimum yield of the light olefins will be established thorough experimental analyses. A kinetic model capable of coupling of the reaction kinetics of the separate reaction networks on the two catalysts will be developed to understand the impact of proximity of the catalyst components on product distribution. In summary, this project proposes to lay foundations for development of two processes for CO₂ utilization, with products that can be tailored based on the demand and requirement at the site.