Prof. Dr. Mehdi Rahimi-Nasrabadi 

Did you know that we can use sunlight and special substances called photocatalysts (PCs) to turn carbon dioxide into renewable fuels? This can be achieved by an exciting method called photocatalytic reduction of CO2. PCs are a type of catalyst that become active when they are exposed to light. One of the newest and most important applications of PCs is the reduction of CO2 into valuable products such as methane, methanol, ethanol, and others. To do this, we need special PCs with specific characteristics.

One type of PCs that shows promise for CO2 reduction is called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are a special kind of material made up of metal ions and organic molecules (organic linkers). What sets MOFs apart is their porous structure, creating a large surface area to interact with molecules. The objective of the research described here is to synthesize and characterize new light-harvesting MOFs for photocatalytic CO2 conversion and explore their potential for photo-coupled electrocatalytic (PCE) CO2 conversion.

We will conduct our investigation of PCE reduction of CO2 using an electrochemical cell with synthesized MOFs as photoelectrodes. Furthermore, we will characterize the synthesized MOFs using various techniques to determine their structure, morphology, spectroscopic properties, and catalytic performance. The motivation behind this research is to address the challenges of climate change and to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels by developing sustainable energy solutions.