Thematic Call 2007 (closed)

Chemical Activation of carbon dioxide and methane

It is an important and one of the most difficult targets of synthetic chemistry to employ carbon dioxide and methane as a potential feedstock of synthesis. This is somewhat surprising as - for instance – fixation and conversion of CO₂ must be one of the oldest reactions in pre-biological systems to enable the occurrence of life. Activation of those compounds, i.e. binding and split-up of the respective structure in a chemical reaction, is obviously complicated by their very high local thermodynamic stability, but is also due to the weakness of current catalytic schemes to bind those gases at appropriate sites while weakening the relevant bonds. The promises of such chemistry are of vital importance: CO₂ binding into useful chemical intermediates can help to tackle the CO₂ problem. Activation of CH₄ might help to build up novel energy storage and transport cycles, especially for the exploitation of remote gas fields and methane hydrate reservoirs.

The proposals should address new and innovative chemical pathways for the conversion of CO₂ and CH₄ into more reactive, useful intermediates, for instance for homogeneous, heterogeneous, or enzymatic catalysis. An appropriate approach has to cover both binding and chemical transfer of the respective gas. High temperature gas shift reactions, as well as pure biotechnological approaches, are explicitly excluded.

  

The second ERA-Chemistry call for proposals (2007) is closed.

A consortium of 12 European research funding organisations in charge of science-oriented chemistry, all of them partners of the ERA-Chemistry network, is herewith announcing the 2nd transnational call for proposals within the scientific subject: “Chemical activation of carbon dioxide and methane”. An overview of the granted research projects can be found below:

Application of carbon dioxide in the synthesis of hydrophilic poly(carbonate)s as novel biodegradable hydrogel materials

Andrew DOVE (United Kingdom), Phillippe DUBOIS (Belgium)

 

Catalytic Functionalization Of Methane Under Supercritical Conditions

Pedro PEREZ (Spain), Michel ETIENNE (France)

 

CO₂-Binding of ammonoxidized lignins and their use as soil improvers ("COBAL")

Falk LIEBNER (Austria), Heike KNICKER (Germany)

 

Design and Development of Highly Active and Stable Nano-Structured Catalyst for Dry Reforming of Methane with CO2

Alain KIENNEMANN (France), Laszlo GUSZI (Hungary), Julian ROSS (Ireland)

 

Development of Dual Transition Metal Activation for Methane and Carbon Dioxide and further Processing to Carbamate Formation

Kilian MUNIZ (France), Barbara KIRCHNER (Germany)

 

Electrical field-induced carbon dioxide and methane activation by atomic force microscopy

Ricardo GARCIA (Spain), Francesco ZERBETTO (Italy)

 

Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide by Combining Ruthenium Hydrido Complexes with Protic Ligands and Protic Metal Oxide Sites

Werner THIEL (Germany), Christophe CORPORET (France)

 

Low temperature selective methane oxidation in confined spaces

Graham HUTCHINGS (United Kingdom), Avelino CORMA (Spain)

 

Molecular catalysis for carbon dioxide incorporation into glycerol

Danielle BALLIVET-TKATCHENKO (France), Arno BEHR(Germany), Manuel NUNES DA PONTA (Portugal)

 

NanoFunC - Controlling Selectivity via Nanostructuring of Multifunctional Model Catalysts.

Joerg LIBUDA (Germany), Francesc ILIAS (Spain)

 

Novel synthetic methodologies based on carbon dioxide : alpha-amino acid derivatives from nitrone umpolung, an atom-economic process, catalysed by transition metals.

Sandrine PY (France), Olaf WALTER (Germany)

 

Plasma assisted conversion of methane and carbon dioxide

Karl-Heinz GERICKE (Germany), Krzysztof KRAWCZYK (Poland)

 

Stable carbenes for the activation of CO₂

J. Antoine BACEIREDO (France), Eduardo PERIS (Spain)