Solar fuels via engineering innovation

The quest for sustainable resources to meet the demands of a rising global population is one of the main challenges for humanity this century, with global energy needs set to double by 2050. This is set against the backdrop of increasing CO2 emissions and associated climate change, and the ambitious target set out in the recent UK Fourth Carbon Budget of a 50% cut in CO2 emissions by 2025. Solar energy can be used to drive the conversion of CO2 into fuels via a process called photocatalytic reduction. The utilisation of CO2 as an alternative fuel represents an attractive strategy to address both the consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels and global warming, while offering sustainable, safe and useful carbon capture.

Large-scale, economic photoconversion of CO2 into solar fuels represents a formidable scientific and technical challenge. Existing processes suffer low productivity due to a lack of appropriate reactor designs able to efficiently introduce light, reactants and a suitable photocatalyst into simultaneous contact, and to effect subsequent product separation and recycling of unreacted CO2. Recent progress in this arena has focused on the development of novel catalysts through advances in nanotechnology. Despite such breakthroughs in materials science, the engineering challenge of optimal CO2 photoreactor design needs a step change transformation to reach its crucial role in the overall process performance. Our vision is to engineer novel photoreactors that can achieve efficient hydrocarbon conversion and separation from CO2 for solar fuel production. This will be achieved via an integrated approach between chemical engineers and chemists to intensify the process of CO2 photoreduction through reactor innovation, and thus, provide alternative future energy options.

The development of sustainable clean technologies, employing novel advanced catalytic processes, is central to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, and is thus expected to impact heavily on the global economy and quality of life. A recent RSC report highlighted opportunities for the 'UK to capitalise on its existing research capabilities and position itself to benefit, both environmentally and economically, from solar fuels innovation'. Beneficiaries would include the energy and process engineering sectors and materials and chemical industry. In 2009, the global market for photocatalytic products was $848M, with a predicted compound annual growth rate of 14% and global volume expected to reach $1.7 billion by 2014.

We will realise the potential knowledge based, economic and societal impacts of our research through (i) communication and engagement activities; (ii) collaborations and partnerships; and (iii) exploitation and application. We will equip a cohort of PDRAs and students with advanced reactor engineering and nanotechnology skills, supplemented by business training through collaborative placements within industrial laboratories of our end-user project partners (energy sector, engineering suppliers, catalyst manufacturers and petrochemical sector). We also have strong links with wider research, policy and social communities, and will regularly engage in research and policy discussions and public debates on issues arising from the research programme, and further advocacy via outreach activities such as the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition and pairing scheme matching scientists with MPs/civil servants, to promote public and commercial dialogue on solar fuels (complementing conventional dissemination routes to the scientific community). Our University Research Offices will help to identify and support the commercial exploitation of developments through patenting and consultancy. We will also open new horizons and opportunities for research via knowledge based impact through the training of research staff and students integrated with personnel exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration across different institutions, countries and industrial partners