Catalyzing the road to sustainable e-fuels

On the evening of Thursday 23 March 2023 RSC Belgium welcomed Professor Damien Debecker from UCLouvain to the British School of Brussels in Tervuren to talk about ’CO2 and H2: catalyzing the road to sustainable e-fuels?’ Professor Damien Debecker is a professor within the Faculty of bio-science engineering at UCLouvain and is currently holder of a Francqui Research Professor chair.

As we all know the mitigation of net CO2 emissions is currently an absolute priority challenge for society for which various strategies must be implemented in parallel. One useful technology, which falls under the umbrella of the Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) concept relies on the catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 to methane, methanol, or higher hydrocarbons.

When methane is targeted, this process is called methanation or the Sabatier reaction. Prof Debecker took us through recent developments in the design of highly active methanation catalysts and then placed these developments in a more general context, questioning the sourcing of both CO2 and H2 and highlighting the fundamental role of renewable electricity in so-called sustainable processes.

The talk covered a number of issues relating to sustainable chemical processes, future energy production and the sense (or non sense) of certain proposed solutions. A lively Q&A session follwoed teh talk and continued during moe informal networking afterwards.

The session was recorded and you can access it direct via the RSC YouTube channel here or via the embedded video below.