HDR_Viterisi 27mars2024

Soutenance HDR - Aurelien VITERISIMercredi 27 mars 2024 à 16h00 - Amphi IPREM

Le 27 mars 2024 à 16h00

HABILITATION A DIRIGER LA RECHERCHE

Aurelien VITERISI (IPREM)

Titre: "Novel materials for the transformation of CO2 into added-value chemicals"

Global warming has become a serious preoccupation in the public and political spheres. As such, most countries have committed to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) to net zero by the year 2050 in the hope of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Carbon dioxide (CO2) constitutes over 75% of all anthropogenically emitted GHG and has, thus, been the main focus of interest. Political organisations are placing tremendous hopes on scientific institutions to find solutions for mitigating the impact of CO2 on climate change. Two main approaches are generally deemed of technological significance: capturing and storing CO2 in various forms or chemically transforming CO2 into added-value chemicals.

In this context, the main subject of my current research focuses on the development of new materials for the transformation and storage of CO2 as part of the E2S funding scheme. The inherent urgency associated with global warming naturally stirred my research towards the electrochemical reduction of CO2 into chemical feedstocks from an applied perspective. Among others, I developed unique organo-metallic catalysts for the electroreduction of CO2 into carbon monoxide (CO) at industrially relevant rates. I additionally approached the field of CO2 capture from an unusual supramolecular chemistry point of view, devoting a significant part of my research to studying fundamental aspects of the interaction of gaseous CO2 with molecular hosts. A new method for the quantification of such interactions has been established.