Renal Backov
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Title: Inorganic, hybridized and living macrocellular foams:
Biography
Biography: Renal Backov
Abstract
We will show how when combining chemistry and the physical chemistry of complex fluids, we can trigger the design of highly efficient heterogeneous catalysts. We will thus focus the topic on 3D-macrocellular monolithic foams bearing hierarchical porosities and applications thereof toward heterogeneous catalysis where both activities and mass transport are enhanced. We will first depict the overall synthetic path, focusing on concentrated emulsions and lyotropic mesophases, acting as soft templates at various length scales. We will see how we can design cellular materials being either, inorganic, carbonaceous, hybridized or living ones where heterogeneous catalysis applications are addressed while considering respectively acidic, metallic, enzymatic or bacterial processes. Along, we will demonstrate how the fluid hydrodynamic, the low molecular hindrance and the easiest accessibility occurring within these foams are offering advanced "out of the box" heterogeneous catalysis whatever acting in batch, on-line or when dedicated toward cascade-type chemical reactions. Finally, we will depict the first CO2 photo-reduction process acting in volume and not on the surface anymore, enhancing electronic density, minimizing foot-print penalty as well as back-reactions.