Carbon dioxide conversion methodologies

Reduction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission has been regarded as a crucial step toward a sustainable environment. Transforming CO₂ waste into potentially clean fuels such as methane can be a permanent solution that mitigates the CO₂ emissions and achieves a sustainable energy future simultaneously. Particularly, the transformation of CO₂ via catalytic processes using the solar energy has attracted great interest because the abundant and inexpensive solar energy can be directly utilized. However, the conversion efficiencies of the existing photochemical systems are still far from satisfactory for commercialization. Integrating the photochemical processes with electroor thermochemical processes for transforming CO₂ into carbon-containing fuels has attracted great attention, because this approach synergistically drives catalytic reactions and leads to greatly enhanced catalytic performances. This chapter summarizes the recent literature on (i) photochemical, (ii) photoelectrochemical, and (iii) photothermal processes employed for CO₂ conversion, and reaction mechanisms and the requirements for designing catalytically active materials to achieve high CO₂ conversion efficiency are discussed. Further, the recent progress on the aerosol processing of novel catalytic materials for CO₂ conversion applications is also briefly reviewed.