Waste Disposal & Sustainable Energy - Call for papers: CO2 Capture and Conversion

The global efforts to mitigate CO₂ emissions – and their devastating effects on the climate – requires ambitious and innovative initiatives from the research communities, both at the fundamental and applied levels.

CO₂ capture at point sources in the industry can be efficiently achieved by absorption in solvents or adsorption on solid materials. Nowadays, researchers strive to establish coherent process configurations in which the whole cycle (capture, sorbent regeneration, CO₂ purification, sorbent recycling, etc.) is considered in a comprehensive way. The latter have to demonstrate a net positive balance where the CO₂ captured largely surpasses the CO₂ emitted to run the process. While “the best CO₂ is the one that is not emitted”, direct air capture will probably be needed as well to target the ambitious goals that international climate agreements have recently put forward. In this perspective, sound technical solutions are currently being deployed and scaled up.

The CO₂ that is mined from industrial effluents or from air can be either stored (Carbon Capture and Storage, CCS) or – more interestingly – used as a carbon source (Carbon Capture and Utilization, CCU). In this latter version, CO₂ can indeed be converted into a range of useful chemicals and fuels. To overcome the intrinsic thermodynamic stability of the CO2 molecule, the assistance of tailored catalysts is decisive. Also, a large energy input is required to transition from the most oxidized form of carbon (CO₂) towards energy-dense molecules which can serve as fuels (methane, methanol, olefins, etc.). Thus, whatever the type of chemical transformation of CO₂ that is envisaged (thermocatalytic, photocatalytic, electrocatalytic), it necessarily relies on an important input of energy. The latter must be sourced from renewables (solar light, green electricity, green hydrogen) for which a huge boost in production capacity is urgently needed.

This special issue will cover all the relevant aspects of CO₂ Capture and Conversion, with a particular focus on innovative solutions that are currently being explored to achieve practically applicable processes.

Potential topics may include but not limited the following:

• CO₂ capture
• Adsorption and absorption
• Electroreduction and photoreduction of CO₂
• Catalytic CO₂ hydrogenation
• e-fuels
• catalysis

Papers will be published online upon acceptance, regardless of the special issue publication date. Welcome your contributions!
 

Guest Editor

Dr. Damien Debecker, UCLouvain, Belgium

damien.debecker@uclouvain.be

Submission Deadline: 31^st October, 2022

Planned Publication Date: 15^th March, 2023

Manuscript guidelines: https://www.springer.com/journal/42768/submission-guidelines (this opens in a new tab)

Submission online: https://www.editorialmanager.com/wdse/ (this opens in a new tab)