“Reinvestigating the Sabatier reaction for large-scale storage of renewable H2”

Reinvestigating the Sabatier reaction for large-scale storage of renewable H₂
1st supervisor and 1st promotor: Prof. Emiel Hensen
2nd supervisor and co-promotor: Assistant Prof. Nikolay Kosinov
Affiliation: Eindhoven University of Technology
Research theme: Storing electricity from renewable sources in chemical bonds

Long-term storage of excess electric energy from intermittent and unpredictable energy sources such as wind and solar can be best done in the form of chemical energy. The century-old Sabatier reaction converts CO₂ with renewable H₂ (e.g., from water electrolysis) in CH₄ which is compatible with the current energy infrastructure. Current technology however does not offer sufficiently active and cheap (scalable) catalysts for promoting this reaction.

The researchers in this project use combinations of a metal with a metal oxide to catalyze the most difficult reaction steps in the conversion of CO₂. For this they will use advanced characterization such as near-ambient pressure XPS and environmental TEM, isotopic kinetic analysis and in situ spectroscopy to understand the nanoscale synergy. The outcome of this project will be a novel catalyst that can efficiently store H₂ with waste CO₂ to methane, which can be later used for electricity or heat generation.

Key words:

• Renewable energy storage
• CO₂ reduction
• Metal/metal oxide synergy
• Kinetics and mechanism
• Operando characterization