The work was conducted within three work packages (WP1-WP3).
WP1 included different synthesis strategies of Ni-based mesoporous silicas. The researcher prepared novel Ni-containing silica catalysts assuming five different synthesis strategies: (i) Low loading of nickel in KIT-6 synthesized at pH of ca. 1, (ii) One-pot synthesis of KIT-6-Ni sample synthesized at pH of 9, (iii) conventional KIT-6 synthesis and wet impregnation with Ni and Y, (iv) rice husk used as a support of Ni-based catalysts for dry reforming of methane, (v) KIT-6-RHA-Ni synthesized from the silica extracted from rice husk ashes. WP2 comprised a detailed physicochemical characterization of the synthesized catalysts. It contained the application of well-established techniques in the Host lab and the Secondment lab. The Secondment involved two stays at the Sorbonne Université (SU), Campus St Cyr in Saint Cyr l’Ecole, France. During the Secondment, the catalytic runs for CO2 utilization were carried out and specific characterizations on the materials were performed (temperature-programmed reduction in H2, temperature-programmed desorption of CO2 or NH3, and Transmission Electron Microscopy). Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) was arranged by SU and performed at Institut de Chimie des Milieux et Matériaux de Poitiers in France. WP3 aimed to study catalytic performance in reforming of methane conditions. Different mixtures of the gases were assumed, involving stoichiometric reactions as well as an excess of one of the gaseous compounds. In situ XAS-XRD provided very meaningful understanding on the cause of the catalysts' deactivation. The measurements were performed at BM31 during beamtimes at the Swiss-Norwegian Beam Lines (SNBL) at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France.
The results of MesoSi-CO2 project are reported in: (i) one journal publication; with the researcher as a first author and corresponding author in Gold Open Access Journal (Energy&Fules, ACS Publications, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.3c02994 ), (ii) forthcoming papers on different synthesis strategies of KIT-6 involving pH of ca. 1 and pH of 9, (iii) forthcoming paper on rice husk ash used as a support for dry reforming of methane, (iv) forthcoming paper on silica extracted form rice husk ashes, (v) six common journal publications with collaborators, (vi) oral presentation at North American Catalysis Society Meeting NAM 27 in New York, USA, (vii) oral presentation at the 19th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis in Espoo, Finland, (viii) poster presentation at the Catalysis at the Energy-Chemistry Nexus - 2022 Winter School in Aussois, France, (ix) poster presentation at Reaction Kinetics, Mechanisms and Catalysis organized online in Budapest, Hungary, (x) poster presentation within a collaboration at 15th International conference on materials chemistry (MC15) organized online by Royal Society of Chemistry.
A summary of the research activates have been presented in the attached image, including the oral presentation of the researcher at the 19th Nordic Symposium on Catalysis in Espoo; beamtimes at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble; Winter School in Aussois; Researchers’ Night organized at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The consent has been provided from people pictured in the attached image.
