The funding will be used to study how metal nanoparticles under illumination can drive CO2 towards specific desired products.
The chemical industry relies heavily on carbon-based building blocks such as CO, methanol and other organic molecules. These molecules can be obtained via the reduction of atmospheric CO2, an attractive approach to lower our dependency on fossil fuels and reduce global warming.
Novel method
A novel method to activate chemical reactions is by shining light on nanoparticles made of coinage metals, such as silver, gold, and copper. These nanoparticles, in fact, can strongly absorb and reflect visible light, giving rise to several attracting phenomena.
First of all, nanoparticles can efficiently harvest light energy and use it to drive chemical reactions. Secondly, they can concentrate light energy and allow spectroscopic detection of molecules being formed at their surface.
Collaboration
Baldi and fellow researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam will collaborate with scientists at the University of Twente and will make use of both these characteristics. They will use advanced microscopy and spectroscopy techniques to control chemistry both in space, using single nanoparticles, and in time, with ultrafast spectroscopy.