Three Catalytic Approaches for CO2 Hydrogenation to Chemicals and Fuels

Title

Three Catalytic Approaches for CO2 Hydrogenation to Chemicals and Fuels

Speaker

Prof. Ziyi Zhong (GTIIT, ChE)

Host

Prof. Kai Huang (GTIIT, Chemistry)

Time and Location

Dec. 14, 2023, Thursday, 9-10am, E309 (Education Building, 3rd floor)

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. In the last several decades, there has been a significant increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Therefore, intensive efforts have been made to activate and convert CO2 through hydrogenation reactions to value-added chemicals and Fuels. This presentation will show three catalytic approaches for CO2 hydrogenation reactions: photocatalytic,  thermal catalytic, and photothermmocatalytic routes. The catalysts discussed for photocatalytic CO2 hydrogenation are g-C3N4/In2O3 and Au/BiOCl; the catalysts for the thermal catalytic process are Cu supported on TiO2, ZnO, and ZrO2 supports. In this part, we intentionally created oxygen vacancies (OV) in the catalyst supports and investigated the role of Ov in CO2 activation and conversion. Finally, we studied the Au/In2O3 system for CO2 hydrogenation under photothermal catalytic conditions. The findings obtained in the studies provide insights into catalytic CO2 conversion and new ways to design and develop highly efficient catalysts for CO2 conversion.

Biography

Ziyi Zhong received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Wuhan University and Ph. D. from Nanjing University in China (1995). He spent five years carrying out postdoctoral research at Bar-Ilan University, the University of Washington at Seattle, and finally at the National University of Singapore. In 2002, he was awarded a Visiting Fellowship from NRC Canada and worked in an NRC Institute (BRI) in Montreal. During the period of 02/2003-09/2018, he worked in the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences (ICES) under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore and also held an adjunct associate professorship in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore (2013-2017), and a part-time position in Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NEWRI) in NTU (20016-2018). He joined GTIIT as a full professor in Oct 2018.

Before joining GTIIT, he worked on many projects related to heterogeneous catalysis, material science, wastewater treatment, and pharmaceuticals, and some of the industrial projects were supported by companies such as Corning Inc (USA), Honeywell (U.S.), Mitsubishi Chemical Corp (Japan), MicroMil CarbonTech (Singapore) and Glaxo SmithKline plc (GSK), etc.

He has authored/co-authored ca. 225 international journal papers (cited ca. 15228 times as of Sept. 2021, Google scholar; 12978 times by Scopus ), 6 book chapters, and 5 granted patents (including 2 U.S. patents), with an h-index of 65 (Google scholar) and 60 (Scopus). Also, he contributed ca. 30 technical project reports for the industry.

The studies in his group aim to address fundamental scientific issues/problems and develop practical applications, particularly for environmental remediation.