Gift Mehlana
Country (Nationality)
Zimbabwe
Grantee Title
Project Title: Design and Synthesis of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Catalytic Coversion of Carbon Dioxide to High Value Chemicals
Grantee Description
Host Organisation: Midlands State University, Zimbabwe
Summary
Carbon dioxide emissions from various sources is the greenhouse gas causing the greatest environmental concerns. The increase of these emissions originates from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. To date, many protocols have been proposed and developed to solve the problems associated with the emission of carbon dioxide. Clean energy technologies provide solutions, however, large scale industrial implementation is not enough to change the energy consumption structures globally in a short period of time. It is therefore imperative to develop technologies that can efficiently capture carbon dioxide from existing emissions to address global challenge area number 7. Our aim is to develop methods that are efficient in converting carbon dioxide to chemicals that can be used for other applications in the industry and this directly addresses global challenge area number 9. These methods should be able to operate at low temperature and pressure unlike the existing methods which require extremely harsh conditions. Not only will this address global environmental concerns, scenarios inevitably more threatening to low and middle income countries, but it will also provide organic starting materials for the chemical industry in countries devoid of fossil oil resources. In addition, industrial symbiosis in envisaged with for example the cement industry. This industry is responsible for 5% of global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions but at the same time implementable in economic development in sub-Saharan Africa.It is interesting to note that the formates generated from the catalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide can be utilised to generate more MOF catalyst.