Increasing CO2 emission is one of the key issues the world is facing today Catalytic technologies for converting CO2 into useful products can play a pivotal role in addressing this challenge This project focuses on the atomic scale design of model catalysts to gain fundamental insight in how the activity, selectivity and stability of CO2 conversion catalysts can be controlled and improved

To this end, Atomic Layer Deposition, a technique for the deposition of nanoparticles and ultrathin coatings, will be applied for the synthesis of model catalysts with atomic level precision, consisting of a noble metal or redox-active core, in combination with inert versus redox-active coatings Building on our ALD expertise for synthesis of (bi)metallic nanoparticles, we propose firstly to exploit ALD thickness control for controlled nanoparticle coating, targeting enhanced stability by limiting sintering and carbon deposition during CO2 conversion, and secondly to exploit the area-selective nature of ALD processes to either block or activate/promote specific catalytic sites, targeting enhanced selectivity when aiming to convert CO2 into specific product molecules

Advanced structural and kinetic characterization by CO-DRIFTS, temporal analysis of products and operando x-ray techniques, will provide links between the stability and reactivity of the ALD designed catalysts and their specific sites during CO2 conversion reactions, like methanation, ethanol synthesis and dry reforming