The DESIRED Kick-off Meeting which took place on 9 & 10 November 2022 in Bari, Italy, was announced by BARITODAY News. The online news was announced in the Italian language, informing the audience about the DESIRED Consortium, and the project’s concept and methodology.
DESIRED has been funded within the programme Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action-Energy for Future for 3.1 M€. DESIRED, coordinated by Angela Dibenedetto, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis at the University of Bari and Director of the Interuniversity Consortium on Chemical Reactivity and Catalysis CIRCC, is devoted to the development of new sustainable technologies to produce solar fuels through the direct coprocessing of, possibly atmospheric, CO2 and water using sunlight as primary energy source.
DESIRED will involve scientists from CIRCC – University of Bari (Angela Dibenedetto) and Polytechnic University of Marche (Alessandra Norici), Charles University – Prague (Jiří Čejka and Ewelina Szaniawska), University of Warsaw (Renata Solarska), IMDEA Energy Institute – Madrid (Javier Dufour zand José Luis Galvez) and industrial partners such as Institute for Sustainable Technologies (AEE INTEC) – Wien (Bettina Muster and Sarah Meitz), eBOS Technologies LTD – Cyprus (Panayiotis Klitou & Giota Lilli), IC2R – Bari, Italy (Michele Aresta).
DESIRED will aim at validating three main research hypotheses:
• Novel and recyclable hybrid photo-electrocatalysts based on p-n junctions and supported on a bio-matrix (“frustules” of diatoms) or on an inorganic material (new-design zeolites) can render direct solar-driven coprocessing of CO2 and water both efficient and sustainable.
• Oscillatory principles, which have proven effective for processing thick slurries in the biorefining sector, can, for the first time, be applied to increase the yield of catalytic reactions in a photo- or photo-electro-reactor.
• Appropriate solar collector configurations can be optimized for the photo-electro-catalytic process by new model development and simulation.
DESIRED, through in-depth and detailed studies on life cycle assessment, will highlight the environmental, social and economic benefits of such an innovative system for the European industry, for potential application sectors and for citizens, opening up new opportunities for the new labor market and new technologies to be exported to countries poor in fossil carbon.