Chemicals with smaller footprints

Natural gas valorization

Natural gas can be a fuel and a chemical feedstock. In the group, we are interested in developing new processes and catalysts to efficiently turn natural gas into more valuable products such as ethylene. We develop technologies for value added chemicals from methane and CO2:

  • Perovskite oxides replacing precious metal as catalysts for syngas/ethylene production from methane (more information can be found in our papers in JEI and AIChE J);
  • Combining methanation and H2O/CO2 electrolysis in one reactor unit to achieve higher efficiency (more information can be found in our paper in Applied Energy).

Biomass conversion

Currently, biomass utilization is mainly for heat generation. We are interested in new technologies to convert biomass into valuable chemical products, such as ethylene. This project is sponsored by Mitacs Globalink.

biomass to ethylene