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The University of Southampton
Clean Carbon

Photonic fibre technologies for solar fuels catalysis

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Our interdisciplinary research brings together leading chemists, physicists and engineers

With increasing concerns over current CO 2 levels and their association with climate change, research needs to establish a way to prevent further CO 2 from reaching the atmosphere. Power production is the highest contributor of CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere followed by industrial process and transportation. Therefore, establishing technologies that extract the CO 2 from these emissions before it reaches the atmosphere is considered the most viable solution. Since various types of CO 2 capturing technologies have been developed over the past decade or so, one might ask, why is it that we are still not seeing these technologies rolled out yet? Here are a couple of reasons:

So the best solution would be converting the CO 2 into a valuable and reusable product which subsequently closes the cycle. This interdisciplinary research brings together leading chemists, physicists and engineers at Southampton. Clean Carbon members Dr Robert Raja, Dr Lindsay Armstrong and Dr Pier Sazio will develop a novel state-of-the-art technology that not only converts CO 2 into a synthetic fuel but does so using solar energy.

Optimised catalytic active sites incorporated into photonic fibres promote photochemical conversion of CO 2 directly into synthetic fuel. Alongside this, computational models and simulations will provide physical insight to evaluate and optimise photonic-fibre catalytic converter technology for synthetic fuel generation. This will subsequently support the development of a lab-scale reactor which will demonstrate the scalability of this state-of-the-art technology.

Engagement across the academic, industrial and public sectors will promote further opportunities for expansion and encourage development of early career researchers, like Dr Marco Petrovich and Dr Jacob Mackenzie who are involved with the programme. The outcomes of the programme will lead to the development not only of new knowledge but, more importantly, opportunities for impact within the energy sector.

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