Faculty Mentor
Cheng Zhang
Major/Area of Research
Chemistry
Description
As global warming caused by CO2 emission is becoming a serious issue that is threatening our life, various efforts have been attempted to mitigate the climate change by reducing the CO2 emission. The primary objective of this project is to develop a novel Pd-based heterogeneous catalyst to enhance the catalytic conversion of CO2 by H2 for the synthesis of value- added chemicals such as CO, methanol and fuels. The Pdbased solution we developed can be tuned to be either acidic or basic to adapt to different catalyst support. The solution was characterized by Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy and the Pd adsorption was determined to be at ~200 nm. The heterogeneous catalyst was synthesized on alumina support (acidic) and active carbon support (basic) via Wet Incipient Impregnation method. The synthesized catalyst is to be tested for CO2 hydrogenation at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL). Catalyst characterization such as Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) surface area, pore size and volume, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), etc. will be carried out at BNL and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP, a top institute in Catalysis in China) with the aim to establish a relationship between activity and properties. This fundamental study will serve as guidance for us to understand the reaction pathway of CO2 hydrogenation.
Included in
Development of a Novel PD-Based Heterogeneous Catalyst for CO2 Conversion
As global warming caused by CO2 emission is becoming a serious issue that is threatening our life, various efforts have been attempted to mitigate the climate change by reducing the CO2 emission. The primary objective of this project is to develop a novel Pd-based heterogeneous catalyst to enhance the catalytic conversion of CO2 by H2 for the synthesis of value- added chemicals such as CO, methanol and fuels. The Pdbased solution we developed can be tuned to be either acidic or basic to adapt to different catalyst support. The solution was characterized by Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy and the Pd adsorption was determined to be at ~200 nm. The heterogeneous catalyst was synthesized on alumina support (acidic) and active carbon support (basic) via Wet Incipient Impregnation method. The synthesized catalyst is to be tested for CO2 hydrogenation at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL). Catalyst characterization such as Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) surface area, pore size and volume, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), etc. will be carried out at BNL and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP, a top institute in Catalysis in China) with the aim to establish a relationship between activity and properties. This fundamental study will serve as guidance for us to understand the reaction pathway of CO2 hydrogenation.