| Project Detail |
Europe and the world are facing to the climate change emergency. To preserve the environment, the ambitious European Green Deal has in the agenda actions related to reducing air, water and soil pollution. In this regard, plastics represent a huge challenge because of they are pollutants that present a recalcitrant nature and consequently widespread and accumulation. Tackling this challenge requires the application of remediation processes beyond than recycle or thermal treatment. Aqueous phase reforming, a mild catalytic process, is here presented as an alternative to eliminate plastics at moderated temperatures and pressures and adding the additional benefit of the production of energetic vectors such as hydrogen or alkanes. To implement this process with high performance, low cost and energy efficiency, photo-oxidation reaction can be employed in a previous treatment. In both stage, the performance of the catalyst is a key aspect.
In this context, the general objective of this project is to obtain heterostructured materials for application on complex catalytic process to achieve a clean conversion of plastics to hydrogen. With this aim, this project proposes the synthetic procedures and the physicochemical characterization of heterostructures composed by layered double hydroxides assembled with carbon materials, to get a library of materials with the catalytic properties demanded in photo-oxidation and aqueous phase reforming. The materials will be tested and optimized in the coupled processes over plastics in micronized size, from different nature and composition. The identification of the intermediates is a requirement to understand the mechanism and the catalytic route followed for the pollutants, the especial relevant to demonstrate the potential of this technology to remove and valorize plastics at large scale. |
