Nachhaltige Katalyse / Sustainable Catalysis (SusCat)

SusCat represents an international project that develops novel organic catalysts, which efficiently drive the production of synthetic fuels forinstance from CO2 as feedstock. State-of-the-art catalysis often relies on transition metals such as platinum or tungsten compounds – materials, which are scarce and potentially expensive, in particular when considering their consequent industrial scale-up for a carbon-neutral energy future. Consequently SusCat seeks an alternative solution and pursues organic sustainable catalytic materials, which drive the fuel production least as efficient without consuming critical elements. The idea is simple – motifs and themes from enzymology are incorporated into semiconducting polymers. As such, the researchers Philipp Stadler and Tsukasa Yoshida from the Johannes Kepler University Austria and Yamagata University Japan mimic nature and thus create sustainable catalytic materials, which are electrically-conductive and catalytically active. Similar to best-in-class transition metal systems,these bio-functional polymers transfer electricity to fuel efficiently.The researchers have already demonstrated materials that operate on parwith state-of-the-art electrocatalyts. Now, their project SusCat ties their excellence to advance these materials for instance by incorporation new enzymatic themes in order to extend their applicability. This concept could be universally utilized for manifold synthesis reaction, where high catalytic activity is required and where nature provides a template. The main goal of SusCat, however, is to establish a sustainable catalytic cycle for synthetic fuels – thereby harnessing the power of enzymatic motifs in artificial synthesis and thereby involving solely abundant organic matter.