Principles behind Catalysis for Energy and the Environment

Processes for energy generation and environmental applications heavily rely on catalytic materials. Reactions such as photo- and electro-catalytic water splitting, thermochemical water splitting, CO₂ reduction to CO, CO₂ reduction to organic compounds, and organic oxidation using renewable sources (direct sunlight and/or electricity) are among the studied reactions at the fundamental and applied levels of investigation.

This call is open to experimentalists and computation scientists in surface and materials science, working on excited state systems as well as on metal/support interaction of the above reactions. The objective is to put together research work from different horizons targeting the same reactions. Results from research fields such as (but not limited to) plasmonic photocatalysts, semiconductor-semiconductor, and metal-semiconductor interfaces, kinetic models, in situ operando spectroscopy, and charge transfer are particularly welcome.

The call is for researchers working on well-defined oxide semiconductors both at the computation and experimental levels for hydrogen production (energy), CO₂ reduction (energy), and organic compounds oxidation (environment). It will be open also to material scientists and researchers in catalysis working on the thermochemical water splitting to hydrogen and oxygen (energy), thermochemical CO₂ reduction (energy), and chemical loops (energy and the environment). Both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalytic reactions are considered including photo- and electrocatalysis. We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:

• Photo- and electro-catalytic water splitting
• Thermochemical water splitting
• CO₂ reduction to CO using renewable energy
• Plasmonic photocatalysts
• Fundamentals of charge transfer in photo- and electro-catalysis