Summarizing comments on the discussion and a prospectus for urgent future action

Abstract

Following my personal reactions to some of the key points made in this Discussion (Part I), I present, in Part II, what I perceive to be the most important, and, in some cases, urgent actions that now need to be taken in the following inter-related fields: (i) design of catalysts, especially for the production of materials using anthropogenic carbon dioxide, CO2, as feedstock; (ii) the continuing role of catalysis in the protection of the environment; (iii) the importance of catalysis in the generation of fuel and the release of energy; and (iv) the wisdom of conducting life cycle and techno-economic analyses continually during the development of new catalysts, as well as of those in regular use. A brief account is also given of the prospect of designing atom-efficient catalysts in which either atomically dispersed rare (and expensive) metals such as Ir or Pt or the use of single-site earth-abundant elements (Al, Si, O) can be employed to facilitate important industrial reactions.

Navigating through the Maze of Homogeneous Catalyst Design with Machine Learning

“…About 85% of all industrial chemistry processes are catalytic [1]. Roughly 25% of the global human energy consumption is used for producing chemicals [1] and the chemical industry accounts for approximately 7% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions [2].…”

“…About 85% of all industrial chemistry processes are catalytic [1]. Roughly 25% of the global human energy consumption is used for producing chemicals [1] and the chemical industry accounts for approximately 7% of the global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions [2]. To limit the global mean temperature rise to 2°C above preindustrial levels, a total reduction of absolute CO 2 emissions in the chemical industry of 30% by 2050 is necessary, despite a projected increase in demand of 180% for the most energy-intensive chemicals in the same period [2], caused mainly by economic growth in developing countries.…”

On choosing the most appropriate catalysts for the conversion of carbon dioxide to fuels and other commodities, and on the environmentally benign processing of renewable and nonrenewable feedstocks

“…An attractive feature of the photocatalytic conversion of CO 2 to CH 4 is that if successful on a large scale, the practice of blending H 2 with natural gas-which involves careful control of the relative amounts of H 2 and natural gas-can be replaced by the much safer and utilitarian blending of sunlight-derived CH 4 with the natural gas grid. This strategy, if and when successful, would ultimately stabilize the amount of CO 2 in the Earth's atmosphere (CO 2 ?…”

“…But whilst there are increasingly more viable methods of generating relatively cheap H 2 -which can sustain the hydrogen economy, and bolster the use of fuel cells (burning H 2 ) for transport, hospitals, shopping malls and the like-the next goal is to achieve highly efficient photocatalytic conversion of CO 2 to CH 4 . In other words, it is the photochemical Sabatier reaction that needs to be conquered.…”

“…Moreover, even before presenting my KOPRC talk at Oxford, I had reviewed in detail the many facets that arise in considering how humankind is going to cope with powering the planet in an environmentally responsible manner in the next 50 years and beyond-see, for example, Refs. [1][2][3][4][5]. See also the definitive review by Centi and co-workers [6] published in 2015, and references therein.…”