Position: Professor of Materials Chemistry & Catalysis | University of Southampton | Co-founder and Chief Scientific Advisor of ViridiCO2™ | Deputy Head of School (Research & Enterprise)
Background:
I have over 25 years’ experience in atomic scale design of heterogeneous catalysts and have worked with multinational chemical and pharmaceutical companies to successfully licence and commercialise catalyst technologies. Developing sustainable catalytic technologies, which mitigate the generation of greenhouse gases, such as CO2 has been core to our research vision and strategy. For the past 6 years, we have been working on the predictive design of platform catalysts for Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies, where we have developed novel materials for the direct conversion of CO2 to fuels.
Project Involvement:
Daniel Stewart’s Ph.D project developed from using this predictive catalytic platform, which in turn led to the discovery of novel heterogeneous catalysts that could be deployed for the conversion of waste CO2 into polymers and other valuable chemicals. From a research perspective, it was quite satisfying to see a fundamental concept that we developed in the laboratory, now being commercially deployed by ViridiCO2™, to provide industrial decarbonisation solutions, in our quest for Net Zero carbon emissions.
Right now:
As ViridiCO2™ pushes on the commercial front, we will be expanding the scope of our research to integrate our CO2 utilisation solutions with other emerging technologies, such as green hydrogen, with a view to incorporating our predictive catalyst design platform in a wider range of sustainable technologies.
Future Hopes:
The chemical industry still relies heavily on fossil fuels as feedstock for the manufacture of bulk chemicals. Using our catalytic platform technology to harness renewable feedstocks and combining this with our CO2 utilisation technology could pave the way for closing the carbon loop in the future.