Plenary Lecture | Wednesday, 21 June 2017 | 09:15 – 10:00 hrs

Chances of Sustainability: Next generation carbon nanomaterials supporting the energy change

Abstract:
Throughout the search for simple candidates for artificial photosynthesis and heterogeneous organocatalysis in the early earth system, carbon nanostructures (with heteroatom doping and edge functionality), turned out to be unexpected hits. Carbons, N-doped carbons, C2N, or C3N4: all these systems are easy to make, mostly based on available and sustainable precursors. To our surprise, such carbocatalysts not only outperform even noble metals and some enzymes, but are at the same time more stable and less sensitive against side reactions, i.e. possess adjusted but selective functionality. Besides some interesting organic model reactions, I will focus on “E2M” materials (energy-to-molecule), i.e. the use of sunlight and stranded electricity for water splitting, peroxide generation, and even the highly effective formation of formic acid from club soda.