Seminary Tailoring Low-Dimensional Materials with Impact on the Activation of CO2 and on Photocatalysis

Dr. Ángel Morales-García, Departament de Ciència de Materials i Química Física & Institut de Química Teòrica i Computacional (IQTCUB), Universitat de Barcelona

Maintaining and improving the quality of human life is one of the key challenges to modern society and do it in a sustainable way a real challenge. Sustainability affects to many aspects of everyday and commercial life, from household energy consumption to transport and food production. Alternative routes to reduce the CO₂ emissions are demanded coupled with active-solid substrates to capture CO₂ following the carbon capture and storage (CCS) derived strategy. Simultaneously, eco-friendly materials are required to covert solar energy into electricity in a sustainable way. In this seminar, I will introduce first-principles based calculations of two-dimensional transition metal carbides (MXenes) as very promising candidates for CO₂ capture, storage and activation.

On the other hand, I will describe a varied set of photoactive titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles with a range of realistic sizes, for which a more controlled comparative analysis of stability, structure and properties can be made.