Advances in Operando Spectroscopy and Microscopy of Heterogeneous Catalysts to Make the Fuels, Chemicals and Materials of the Future

As we enter the era of catalytic activation of small molecules, such as CO2, CO, and H2O, to realize the so-called refinery of the future one of the main questions to answer for scientists involve the coupling of carbon fragments, originating from CO2, either produced at point sources, or harvested from direct air capture units. The overall goal is to manufacture increasingly complex (and thus value-added) carbon-containing molecules from CO2 or via its intermediates CO and CH3OH instead of making them from crude oil fractions. This requires a profound knowledge of the chemical processes taking place at the catalytic surface of both thermo- and electrocatalytic activation processes of CO2, was well as of the subsequent chemical conversion processes in which carbon monoxide (Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, FTS), methane (either as waste methane, or biomethane, via selective C-H activation) and methanol (methanol-to-hydrocarbons process, MTH) are used. This is the topic of this lecture, in which I discuss the latest progress made in our group in understanding CO2 activation over nickel (thermocatalytic conversion) and copper (electrocatalytic conversion), and of CH3OH over zeolite-based materials (MTH). Special emphasis is on the use of in-situ and operando characterization methods to elucidate reaction and deactivation mechanisms. The talk will end with some vistas on the zeolite-based depolymerization of plastic waste as well as biomass, namely the metal nanoparticle-based depolymerization of chitin, as these are also relatively new carbon sources for the refinery of the future, as both chemical bond breaking and bond making are essential.