The main social concern nowadays is, no doubt, global warming due to the increase of greenhouse gases (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. Although it is not the only one, the most important of these GHG is CO2 and, therefore, any action to reduce its concentration from the atmosphere or the anthropogenic emissions is of capital importance. In this project we propose to synthesize and develop photo- and electrocatalysts that allow the efficient and cost-effective photo- or electrochemical conversion of CO2 to added value carbon compounds such as CO, CH4, CH3OH, etc. This strategy potentially contributes to reaching EU targets for global warming (Paris Agreement and directives at horizon 2030 and 2050). Another objective of this project is the preparation of catalysts for HER and OER, the two half-cell reactions for water splitting. Hydrogen production with low-cost photo- or electrocatalysts is expected to have a high social impact since it is becoming an essential vector for energy storage associated to renewable energy sources. On the other side, OER is one of the best options for coupling with reduction reactions, such as CO2 reduction.

Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using solar energy is the simplest approach to produce renewable fuels. However, a major drawback of these reactions is their slow kinetics and the subsequent storage of hydrogen. For this reason, this project studies the synthesis of polyoxometalates, metal-organic networks, covalent organic networks and materials based on lamellar double hydroxides to be used on the one hand, as reaction catalysts and, on the other, for the storage of the generated hydrogen.

This project is based on the synthesis of metal-organic networks (MOFs) and 2D materials with layered double hydroxides (LDHs) for potential energy and environmental applications