Grant: Alliance Grants

Our reliance on fossil fuels and impact on the climate is not sustainable and requires immediate action.One way of addressing these issues is to transform CO2, the main molecule responsible for green houses gas effects and global warming, into useful fuels. There has been a strong effort in recent years to develop catalysts that can reduce CO2 into synthetic fuels by using visible light. However, the scalability of catalysts at an industrial scale and the limited efficiency of the CO2 reduction reaction are limiting the implementation of these catalysts.Here, we propose to fabricate copper-based catalysts using ultrafast lasers to simultaneously control morphology and surface chemistry. These catalysts are easily scalable and will use visible light to reduce CO2. For this project to be be successful, the expertise available at the University of Ottawa in laser texturing and CO2 reduction will be complemented with the expertise at the Jean-Monnet University in St-Etienne, France on surface engineering using ultrafast lasers and modelling tools to better understand laser-matter interactions. This collaboration will help us get closer to a scalable CO2 reduction solution and ultimately contribute to reducing green-house gas emissions and limit the effects of climate change.