Vigyan Yuva awardee Vivek Polshettiwar: From carbon dioxide to fuel using gold
The nanomaterial he has designed converts yellow gold into black gold, which captures carbon dioxide and converts it into fuel using energy from sunlight.
Vivek Polshettiwar of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, one of the winners of this year’s Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar award for Chemistry, works on innovative nanomaterials that can help address challenges posed by climate change. He describes a nanomaterial called DFNS, which helps convert yellow gold to black gold, which in turn captures carbon dioxide and converts it into fuel using energy from sunlight it has absorbed itself.
What I do
We work on the development of innovative nanomaterials for purposes including catalysis, solar energy capture, and the conversion of carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals, as ways to address the challenges posed by climate change. We have successfully created cutting-edge nanomaterials, particularly dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS). DFNS serves as a support onto which we engineer a black gold catalyst which, in turn, can harvest solar energy and activate carbon dioxide, converting it into valuable chemicals and fuels.
The produced fuel can be utilised to generate energy, and the resulting carbon dioxide can be recaptured and reconverted into fuel. This creates a closed-loop carbon cycle, effectively eliminating carbon dioxide emissions into the environment and contributing significantly to India’s goal of achieving a net-zero carbon economy.
How I do it
Carbon dioxide is an inactive compound. To make it reactive, we absorb it onto this solid nanocatalyst material and bend the molecules to make them reactive. But that alone is not enough. Even after you make carbon dioxide reactive, you still need lots of energy to convert it into useful chemicals, which makes the process unsustainable.
To address this, we need the same material to not only activate the carbon dioxide but also to harvest the carbon dioxide, with all the energy coming from sunlight. And that’s what black gold does; it has this ability to capture and activate the carbon dioxide and also harvest it using photons from sunlight.
Using nanochemistry techniques, we have transformed DFNS-based yellow gold into black gold. The developed black gold acts like an artificial tree that uses carbon dioxide, sunlight and water to produce fuel.
Currently, our discoveries are at the laboratory scale. However, several industries have shown a keen interest in our work, and we are actively collaborating with them to scale up the process. If successful, we aim to commercialise this technology for the benefit of society. I am confident that with the necessary support, infrastructure and funding, this vision is attainable.