Design of Electro-Thermocatalytic Reaktors for Controlled Regeneration of Atom-Efficient Catalysts

Research Project, 2026 – 2031

To address today’s environmental challenges, the production of energy and chemicals must rapidly change. The chemical industry currently relies on catalysts, materials that speed up reactions, in 90% of its processes. Catalysis will thus play a pivotal role in transitioning from our fossil fuel-based society to a more sustainable and renewable society. However, most catalyst materials rely on expensive and scarce metals. Even more strikingly, these metal-based catalysts can present very low atom efficiency (below 20%). In other words, most metal atoms are not used in the reaction. With 34 materials and metals identified as critical by the European Union, metal scarcity issues are thus key hurdles to achieving a clean energy transition. Finally, most catalysts lose their activity over time, and their regeneration is costly. Catalytic reactors and catalysts must be reimagined to face these challenges.

The goal of ReGenCAT is to design a groundbreaking electro-thermocatalytic reactor capable of in situ regeneration of catalysts at low energy costs. The reactor will rely on atom-efficient catalysts called dilute metal alloys. By exploiting the dynamic restructuring of dilute metal alloys in response to changes in applied electrochemical potentials, the reactor will enable in situ regeneration of catalysts under mild conditions at low temperatures and pressure. It will yield synergy and increase the lifetime of catalysts in important reactions involving biomass-derived chemicals. In the long term, I envision that the unique integration of thermocatalysis and electrocatalysis developed in ReGenCAT will also significantly advance current and emerging sustainable technologies relying on renewable electricity - such as fuel cells and electrolyzers - by improving their overall efficiency.