ZEOLcat.pt - Applications

Molecular Separation

Ongoing research aims to develop advanced zeolite materials with enhanced properties and explore new applications in different research areas such as Agri-food to reduce food losses and wastes. Nano4fresh Project targets to extend the post-harvest quality and shelf-life of the fruit by removing harmful/toxic substances (e.g. ethylene inhibitors and antibacterial/antifungal) during the transport and storage period. This approach comprises the ethylene removal, from fruits storage atmosphere, using zeolites with versatile characteristics in terms of adsorption. The developed technology will be tested, and the performances validated in a laboratory-controlled and real-life environment to supply fruit quality parameters (colour, compactness, sugar content, enzymatic activity) in the presence and absence of developed devices.

Low-carbon Catalytic Processes

Catalytic processes play a crucial role in the transition to a more sustainable and low carbon economy. By optimizing catalyst design, reaction conditions and process efficiency, low carbon catalytic processes will help to mitigate climate change.

Examples of low carbon catalytic processes:

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis: Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis is a catalytic process that converts carbon monoxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbon fuels, such as synthetic diesel and synthetic gasoline. It can utilize renewable sources of carbon monoxide, such as biomass or waste gases, to produce low carbon fuels. The use of carbon dioxide (CO2) as an alternative carbon source for FT synthesis is an area of active research and development.
Zeolite catalysts are widely employed in the upgrading process to improve the quality of the fuel and meet the desired specifications.
Hierarchical zeolites instead of microporous zeolites improve the quality of products by increasing the isomers selectivity (One Step Catalytic Production of Liquid Hydrocarbons from Syngas, master thesis, Daniel Costa

Ongoing projects are being developed in collaboration with the Portuguese Collaborative Laboratory NET4CO2

Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers - LOHCs

LOHCs will play a significant role in the future hydrogen economy by providing a practical and safe method for hydrogen storage, transportation, and distribution at ambient conditions. They can reversibly store and release hydrogen through hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions.
The main challenges are catalyst development and the choice of suitable LOHC materials.
A PhD thesis with the proposal to optimize the process conditions, identify adequate catalysts for both hydrogenation and dehydrogenation and achieve an effective LOHC solution at industrial scale, is being developed in the frame of the EngIQ doctoral program. This work involves HYCHEM and the University of Coimbra.

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU)

Human activity is highly dependent on fossil fuels and the burning of such emits carbon dioxide (CO2). Strategies to mitigate CO2 emissions include energy transition into renewable sources along with Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU). Catalytic processes are being developed for CCU in where CO2 is converted into valuable products.
An attractive and promising strategy to use the captured CO2 and an inexhaustible energy source as sunlight is the photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to produce solar fuels. This green option is inspired by photosynthesis and remains limited by the low activity and selectivity of the current photocatalysts. Thus, this research line is focused on advanced photocatalysts design to be tested in a continuous gas-phase photoreator. Different hybrid composites derived from carbon materials such as graphene are being settled as promising photocatalysts.

Renewable Feedstock valorization

Renewable feedstock valorization refers to the process of converting renewable raw materials or biomass into valuable products through various technological and chemical processes. This approach aims to utilize sustainable and renewable resources to produce fuels, chemicals, materials, and other valuable commodities, reducing reliance on fossil fuels and minimizing environmental impacts.

A project about Hydro conversion technologies integrated into the PRR Agenda “Moving to Neutrality” (M2N) is ongoing. It focuses on the flexible and efficient co-processing of advanced unconventional feedstocks (ADFNCs) in parallel with vegetable oils and animal fats into high quality aviation and marine fuels. Currently, existing processes are optimized for one ADFNCs, typically for vegetable oils and animal fats, and thus there are no processes capable of co-processing the three ADFNCs (algae oil, biomass pyrolysis oil, pyrolysis oil from non-recyclable plastics) of interest in this project.

Development of New Multifunctional Catalysts For The Hydrodeoxygenation of Biomass-Derived Oxygenated Molecules_ Ana Rita Nunes-IST master thesis.

Applications

Molecular Separation

Low-carbon Catalytic Processes

Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers - LOHCs

Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU)

Renewable Feedstock valorization

Funding

Centro de Química Estrutural -Institute of Materials Science (CQE/IMS) and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through projects UIDB/00100/2020 and UIDP/00100/2020.