Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

According to the UN Panel on Climate Change, CO2 level is expected to rise beyond 450 ppm by 2050 leading to the enhancement of global warming, and drastic changes in climate patterns that include droughts, large-scale flooding and vast forest fires. CO2 capture and conversion to produce CH4 seems to be a promising solution since the use of CO2 as a chemical feedstock is limited to a few industrial processes. As a solution, the proposed process will absorb CO2 at low temperature at high pressure and once heated it converted into a catalyst to produce methane using green H2. We intend to capture higher concentrations of CO2 than what is reported and transform it to CH4 at moderate temperatures and pressures in two heat-integrated stages. The reported one-stage process is quite inefficient in CO2 capture and requires too much energy for operation. We also propose better doping of the solid sorbents to reach at least a loading of 3 mmol/g and above 95 % CO2 conversion and CH4 selectivity. The first objective is the development of a technology based on functionalized porous solids to capture CO2 at different concentrations varying from air (418 ppm) to flue gases (15 %). Tailor-made strategies for the material design of doped bimetallic high porosity solid sorbents (MOF-5,-74, ZIF-8, MCM-41, and SBA-15) and Zeolite Geopolymer Composites (ZGC) to capture CO2. The support and highly efficient Amino Acid Ionic Liquids (AAILs) solvents will be screened in DFT studies to select the best solid support and solvents. The intent is to propose new functionalized solid sorbents doped with metals to optimize their CO2 uptake capacity and obtain high selectivity over N2, fast kinetics, low regeneration energy, and high stability in humid conditions. We intend to reach a loading of 3 mmol/g. The second objective is to enhance the hydrogenation of CO2 to produce methane using new catalysts. A DFT study will investigate the activated adsorption of H2 and CO2 on the surface of the original sorbent that has already two metals and is doped with a third one. We will study the influence of the different doping metals (Fe, Ni, Zn, Ru, CeO2...) on the CO2 molecule configuration for different doping metals on the porous materials mentioned above. The adsorption energy of CO2 on different surfaces with and without doping will help determine the role the metals play in the promotion of the catalytic performances of CO2 methanation. A thin fixed-bed flow reactor will be used to elucidate the catalytic performance between 250 and 350 oC, and from atmospheric pressure to 80 bar of the nanoparticle-doped bimetallic MOFs leading to a high percentage conversion  and selectivity. A microbalance will be used for the adsorption studies, and a Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) will help study the stability of AAIL-MOFS and the bimetallic catalysts doped with metal nanoparticles. The catalysts will be comprehensively characterized by several analytical techniques.