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Recently, photo switching porous materials have been widely reported for low energy costed CO2 capture and release via simply remoted light controlling method. However, most reported photo responsive CO2 adsorbents relied on metal organic framework (MOFs) functionalisation with photochromic moieties, and MOF adsorbents still suffered from chemically and thermally unstable issues. Thus, further metal free and highly stable organic photoresponsive adsorbents are necessary to be developed. CTFs, because of their high porosity and stability, have attracted great attention for CO2 capture. Considering the high CO2 uptake capacity and structural tunability of CTFs, it suggests high potential to fabricate the photoswitching CTF materials by the same functionalisation method as MOFs. Herein, the first series of photo switching CTFs were developed for low energy CO2 capture and release. Apart from that, the CO2 switching efficiency could be doubled either through the azobenzene numbers adjusting method or through the previously reported structural alleviation strategy. Furthermore, the pore size distribution of azobenzene functionalised PCTFs also could be tuned under UV exposure, which may contribute to the UV light induced decrease of CO2 uptake capacity. These photoswitching CTFs represented a new kind of porous polymers for low energy costed CO2 capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conversion of CO2 with CH4 into liquid fuels and chemicals in a single-step catalytic process that bypasses the production of syngas remains a challenge. In this study, liquid fuels and chemicals (e.g., acetic acid, methanol, ethanol, and formaldehyde) were synthesized in a one-step process from CO2 and CH4 at room temperature (30 °C) and atmospheric pressure for the first time by using a novel plasma reactor with a water electrode. The total selectivity to oxygenates was approximately 50-60 %, with acetic acid being the major component at 40.2 % selectivity, the highest value reported for acetic acid thus far. Interestingly, the direct plasma synthesis of acetic acid from CH4 and CO2 is an ideal reaction with 100 % atom economy, but it is almost impossible by thermal catalysis owing to the significant thermodynamic barrier. The combination of plasma and catalyst in this process shows great potential for manipulating the distribution of liquid chemical products in a given process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bimetallic Ni-Fe/TiO2-Al2O3 catalysts were prepared by using the titania-alumina composite as a support, which was synthesized through three different methods (precipitation, co-precipitation, and sol-gel). The synthesized catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction, temperature-programmed reduction, and transmission electron microscopy. The catalytic performance of the catalysts for the methanation of syngas was studied under atmospheric pressure. Ni and Fe species were found to be highly dispersed on the TiO2-Al2O3 composite prepared by the sol-gel method, which led to good catalytic performance for CO conversion (≈96.7 %) and methane selectivity (≈94.7 %) at lower temperatures. In addition, less amorphous carbon was deposited on the used Ni-Fe/TiO2-Al2O3 catalyst prepared by the sol-gel method. This was ascribed to the evidenced core-in-shell structures (TiO2 shell with Al2O3 core) of the TiO2-Al2O3 composite prepared by the sol-gel method, which led to prominent stability of the catalyst (≈30 h). The results give an applicable guide for the highly efficient methanation of syngas under atmospheric pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]