Research Projects

The excessive use of fossil fuels is causing a rapid increase in CO2, a major cause of global warming. To address this issue and high energy demand, CO2 conversion to fuel stocks is an innovative approach. However, this method faces kinetic hindrance due to high dissociation energy and sluggish electron transfer process. Photocatalytic reduction of CO2 is a renewable method to counteract CO2 emission. Coordination polymer gels (CPGs) with a soft networking structure can be used for CO2 reduction. This structure promotes easy diffusion of gas molecules and immobilization of the catalyst, accelerating substrate binding. Porphyrins and metalloporphyrins are well-explored photosensitizers in electrocatalysis. Metalated porphyrin or phthalocyanine can enhance photocatalytic performance. BODIPY dyes, with intense absorption and emission in the vis-NIR region, can be modified to have higher singlet or triplet excited lifetimes and can be explored as photosensitizers in CPG. The proposed low molecular weight gelators (LMWG) can self-assemble with 3d-transition metal ions to yield CPG for CO2 reduction reaction.