M. Sc. Samuel Fehr
 | Room: 329 (Chemie I) Telephone: +49 (0) 761 203-6138 e-Mail: samuel.fehr@fmf.uni-freiburg.de
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Today, methanol is produced out of fossil resources like coal and natural gas. A more sustainable way of synthesis would be the usage of carbon dioxide as a starting material. Therefore, the heterogenous convertion of carbon dioxide and hydrogen on Cu/ZnO/ZrO2 catalysts to methanol is examined in our working group for several years now.
Concerning this topic we recently opened a new field in our group by starting quantum chemical calculations (DFT) on possible reaction pathways/mechanisms for the heterogenous reaction. For this, we are working with different molecular Cu/ZnO clusters.
Since theoretical calculations need practical work to lean on, my work is to establish in-situ analytics to complement the DFT calculations and relate it to practice. We are establishing in-situ DRIFT IR cell with an incorporated High Temperature Reaction Chamber (see Fig. 1) for the investigation of heterogeneously catalyzed gas-phase reactions under (almost) practical reaction conditions (up to 900 °C and 32 bar). Additionally, we did set up a second model reactor, with which we have a quick access to reduced catalysts for either in-situ Raman spectroscopy or other analytics (pXRD, ATR-FTIR, possibly SEM/TEM). In this way we are able to learn more about the catalytic system under reaction conditions.
Fig.1: DRIFT-Cell with the high-temperature reaction chamber.