Intensified processes for CO2 capture and valorization by catalytic conversion

Energy and environmental issues are today's major concerns. To solve huge energy needs, the increasing use of fossil fuels leads to significant amounts of CO₂ emissions, which have major negative effects on the environment. An urgent reduction in CO₂ emissions is therefore an absolute priority to minimize the actual global warming. Carbon capture & utilization (CCU) has been introduced as a sustainable avenue. Viewing CO₂ as a resource (renewable feedstock) rather than a waste, its conversion into different value-added products offers an attractive and efficient alternative to CO₂ storage via chemical recycling. However, CO₂ is a very stable molecule whose conversion is a very difficult and complex task. On the other hand, from a sustainable development perspective, CO₂ conversion by catalytic hydrogenation reactions requires hydrogen derived from renewable sources. Because of numerous benefits, our group has been focussing high attention to the application of different process intensification tools to proposed technologies for CO₂ capture in gas/liquid contactors (including membrane separation and enzymatic processes), highly pure hydrogen production with in-situ CO₂ capture, and CO₂ conversion by catalytic hydrogenation, which will be reviewed in the present paper.