Perspectives and State of the Art in Producing Solar Fuels and Chemicals from CO2 (Gabriele Centi)

摘要

This contribution on the perspectives and state of the art in producing solar fuels and chemicals from CO2 discusses some of the trends and issues regarding the recycle of CO2 as an enabling element for a tow carbon economy and the efficient introduction of renewable energy in the production chain. After introducing this new vision for CO2 chemical recycle, and some related aspects regarding the energy vectors and the problem of introducing renewable energy in the energy and chemical production chain, two aspects are discussed: i) the production of light olefins from CO2 as example of opportunity to introduce renewable energy in the chemical industry value chain, and ii) the conversion of CO2 to fuels using sunlight (solar fuels), with a concise presentation of the possible routes. The final part is dedicated to discuss the longer term perspective of the development of artificial leaf type solar cells, with an example of a first attempt of photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) solar cell to go in this direction.