Master degree in Materials Science

Among the several Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technologies, CO2 conversion to organic carbonates i.e., Dimethylcarbonate (DMC), can play an important role as a low energy reaction.
Activating the CO2 bond is the primary step of its conversion. Thanks to their amphoteric surface character, CeO2 and ZrO2 can parallelly activate CO2 and methanol to form DMC. Solid solutions between these two oxides are reported as the most promising catalysts, ascribing to the oxygen vacancies the main role for CO2 activation.

After having investigated the role of Ce+3 and Oxygen Vacancies formed over pure CeO2, we are currently exploring their formation in CeZrOx solid solutions.
   
During the thesis work the candidate will then investigate the interaction of CO2 and methanol with Ce(x)Zr(1-x)O2 solid solutions by in-situ FT-Infrared, UV-Vis and Raman Spectroscopies.