Symposium FJ
Advanced Photo/Electro Catalytic Materials for a Low-Carbon and Resilient Transition

The use of renewable energy to drive the chemical and energy processes and the chemical storage of renewable energy is a crucial element of moving to a low-carbon and resilient economy, developing a sustainable society and fostering the transition in energy and chemistry. There is a fast-growing scientific interest in this subject, with emerging new directions and applications also at the industrial level. The development of advanced photo/electrocatalytic materials, and in general, materials able to use renewable energy sources to drive the conversion of small molecules such as CO2, N2, H2O and CH4 to produce fuels and chemicals (e-refinery and e-chemistry) is a key topic of fast-growing interest. These technologies, often identified with the term Solar-to-X or artificial photosynthesis or leaf-type, are crucial for realizing distributed production technologies and implementing net-zero communities.
Realizing this challenge requires the development of new ideas, concepts and innovative photo/electrocatalytic materials as well as other contiguous areas such as plasma catalysis. However, there is also the need to rethink the current approaches because it is emerging how accelerating the progress in this area requires the development of new concepts and ideas largely beyond the current ones investigated. It is thus of foremost relevance the possibility of an open discussion and exchange of ideas to stimulate a creative and novel understanding, explore new directions and possibilities, and also revise the fundaments to understand better the peculiarities of designing photo/electro or plasma catalytic materials and how they differentiate from conventional catalysis.
These materials are also widely utilized to clean and remediate our environment. Semiconducting photocatalytic materials possess multi-functional properties, which allow their use in various areas, from photocatalytic environmental remediation, water splitting for hydrogen fuel, CO2 reduction, self-cleaning coatings, electrochromic devices and sensors, and low-cost solar cells. New emerging areas will include the development of new technologies to convert small molecules such as O2, N2 and CH4 and the coupling between photocatalysis and non-thermal plasma chemistry. The nano-architecture design of these materials is of crucial relevance to achieve these different functional characteristics and realize an efficient energy conversion. There is a need to gather together multiple competencies to accelerate the development of these nanomaterials for solar energy and environmental applications. At the same time, electrocatalytic materials are a complementary area of increasing relevance, both integrated with solar materials to realize PEC or PV/EC devices or as electrocatalytic technology for a wide range of applications, from the electrolysis of small molecules to the conversion of biomass or other already functionalized substrates. The large range of applications and new solutions is only starting to be explored. Still, the development of advanced electrodes/electrocatalysts is the turning point to pass from lab to industrial scale.
This symposium aims to provide a multi-disciplinary forum for scientists, engineers, and industry experts to break new ground in the discussion, realize cross-fertilization, and progress in understanding the design criteria for their use. Among the recent developments that will be highlighted in the symposium are advances in the synthesis of novel materials with tailored nano-architecture, the preparation of thin films and nanostructures, the advanced characterization by experimental and theoretical methods of these materials and of their structure-performance relationships, processing techniques, device fabrication and stability; advances in environmental applications and air quality improvement; novel concepts, technologies and materials for photo/electro catalysis and their use in Solar-to-X or artificial photosynthesis/leaf-type technologies.