Ultrapermeable Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese/Alumina Inverse Opal as a Coke-Tolerant and Pressure-Drop-Free Catalyst for the Dry Reforming of Methane

Achieving Functionality and Multifunctionality through Bulk and Interfacial Structuring of Colloidal-Crystal-Templated Materials

Over the past 25 years, the field of colloidal crystal templating of inverse opal or three-dimensionally ordered macroporous (3DOM) structures has made tremendous progress. The degree of structural control over multiple length scales, understanding of mechanical properties, and complexity of systems in which 3DOM materials are a component have increased substantially. In addition, we are now seeing applications of 3DOM materials that make use of multiple features of their architecture at the same time. This Feature Article focuses on the different properties of 3DOM materials that provide functionality, including a relatively large surface area, the interconnectedness of the pores and the resulting good accessibility of the internal surface, the nanostructured features of the walls, the structural hierarchy and periodicity, well-defined surface roughness, and relative mechanical robustness at low density. It provides representative examples that illustrate the properties of interest related to applications including energy storage and conversion systems, sensors, catalysts, sorbents, photonics, actuators, and biomedical materials or devices.

Mechanistic and multiscale aspects of thermo-catalytic CO2 conversion to C1 products

The increasing environmental concerns due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions have called for an alternate sustainable source to fulfill rising chemical and energy demands and reduce environmental problems. The thermo-catalytic activation and conversion of abundantly available CO2, a thermodynamically stable and kinetically inert molecule, can significantly pave the way to sustainably produce chemicals and fuels and mitigate the additional CO2 load. This can be done through comprehensive knowledge and understanding of catalyst behavior, reaction kinetics, and reactor design. This review aims to catalog and summarize the advances in the experimental and theoretical approaches for CO2 activation and conversion to C1 products via heterogeneous catalytic routes. To this aim, we analyze the current literature works describing experimental analyses (e.g., catalyst characterization and kinetics measurement) as well as computational studies (e.g., microkinetic modeling and first-principles calculations). The catalytic reactions of CO2 activation and conversion reviewed in detail are: (i) reverse water-gas shift (RWGS), (ii) CO2 methanation, (iii) CO2 hydrogenation to methanol, and (iv) dry reforming of methane (DRM). This review is divided into six sections. The first section provides an overview of the energy and environmental problems of our society, in which promising strategies and possible pathways to utilize anthropogenic CO2 are highlighted. In the second section, the discussion follows with the description of materials and mechanisms of the available thermo-catalytic processes for CO2 utilization. In the third section, the process of catalyst deactivation by coking is presented, and possible solutions to the problem are recommended based on experimental and theoretical literature works. In the fourth section, kinetic models are reviewed. In the fifth section, reaction technologies associated with the conversion of CO2 are described, and, finally, in the sixth section, concluding remarks and future directions are provided.

Sol-gel synthesis of α-Al2O3 with enhanced porosity via dicarboxylic acid templating

One of the major routes to synthesize macroporous α-Al₂O₃ is the sol-gel process in presence of templates. Templates include polymers as well as carboxylic acids, such as citric acid. By careful choice of the template, pore diameters can be adjusted between 110 nm and several µm. We report the successful establishment of plain short-chain dicarboxylic acids (DCA) as porogenes in the sol-gel synthesis of macroporous α-Al₂O₃. By this extension of the recently developed synthesis route, a very precise control of pore diameters is achieved, in addition to enhanced macropore volumes in α-Al₂O₃. The formation mechanism thereof is closely related to the one postulated for citric acid, as thermal analyses show. However, since branching in the DCA-linked alumina nuclei is not possible, close monomodal pore width distributions are attained, which are accompanied by enhanced pore volumes. This is a significant improvement in terms of controlled enhanced porosity in the synthesis of macroporous α-Al₂O₃.