Research Projects

As our commitment to climate protection, developing new and renewable energy sources gained a significant thrust in recent years. India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission and Methanol Economy program are two crucial initiatives. Carbon dioxide alone contributes 75% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon capture and storage, and/or utilization is of profound interest to achieve net-zero emissions. Direct hydrogenation of CO₂ to methanol (CTM; CO₂ + 3H₂ → CH₃OH + H₂O) is promising to ameliorate anthropogenic carbon emission. It is also fascinating that hydrogen can be sourced in ‘green’ way, i.e. by utilizing renewable energy. CTM with captured CO₂ and ‘green hydrogen’ solves CO₂ emission while delivering a sustainable fuel, green methanol. Methanol is a key building block of chemical industry, and a convenient fuel. Though methanol synthesis via carbon monoxide (CO) hydrogenation has been industrialized, direct CO₂ hydrogenation to methanol confronts many obstacles like low selectivity and poor stability of the catalysts under industrial conditions. For over last 50 years, thermal catalytic route, which is the predominant route suitable for relatively larger applications, of CO₂ to methanol conversion has undergone novel catalytic formulations and innovations in reactor designs. Since, selective hydrogenation of CO₂ is a formidably challenging task due to its inertness and the thermodynamic factors of the process, design of catalysts play a crucial role. Oxide solid-solutions, in particular, indium and zinc zirconium oxide (InZrOx and ZnZrOx) showed superior catalytic activity than the classical Cu-ZnO-Al₂O₃ and other ternary systems, because of efficient hydrogen dissociation and oxygen vacancies. Very recently, it is also reported that low loading of metal promoters, like palladium, copper, to the solid-solution oxide catalysts profoundly increases methanol selectivity and stability of the catalyst. Atomically dispersed particles on supports termed as ‘single atom catalysts (SAC)’ emerged as an exciting material in heterogeneous catalysis for their unique reactivity and 100% atom efficiency. Low dispersion of metals also saves material cost. Given that SACs have advantages, versatile and reliable synthesis methods for SACs are direly sought for. This project aims to develop atomically dispersed metal over oxide solid-solutions as a novel heterogeneous catalyst to achieve high yield and methanol selective CO₂ hydrogenation in single pass thermocatalytic route. Several noble (Pd, Ru, Rh, Ir, Re) and non-noble metal (Cu, Mg, Al) based catalysts on oxide solid-solutions will be synthesized using facile wet chemical methods. The activity of the catalysts will be tested using a small-scale fixed-bed catalytic reactor under relevant conditions. The active site of the catalysts will be investigated using in situ spectroscopic techniques. The insights will be crucial for the development of single atom catalysts in CO₂ to methanol production.