John Jeyes Award goes to the Sustainable Methanol Team
The Sustainable Methanol team wins the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Environment, Sustainability and Energy Division Horizon Prize, the John Jeyes Award 2022. The team is based at ETH Zürich, TotalEnergies, Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia and Paul Scherrer Institute. It won the prize for the discovery, understanding, and technical development of a novel catalytic technology for the recycling of carbon dioxide to produce sustainable methanol.
The Sustainability and Energy Division Horizon Prize, also known as John Jeyes Award, is awarded by the Royal Society of Chemistry and celebrates the most exciting chemical science taking place today. This year, the Sustainable Methanol team was able to convince the jury. In its project, the team discovered a new family of catalytic materials based on indium oxide with outstanding performance in converting CO2 to methanol, an essential chemical commodity. Thus, their work offers a technically viable solution for recycling carbon dioxide to produce methanol. The process is sustainable, energy and cost efficient, and can be carried out at an industrial scale.
“As technical solutions for catalytic carbon dioxide conversion become established, the next milestone is to ensure the broad implementation of CCU – carbon capture and utilisation – technologies as part of defossilisation strategies”, Javier Pérez-Ramírez of the Sustainable Methanol team says. „Our team is driven to solve important problems for future generations. Having an ambitious mission with long term industrial targets coupled with the freedom to develop fundamental tools for catalyst design keeps us fuelled.”
In the future, new technologies for carbon dioxide (CO2) utilisation will be crucial for achieving global goals of overcoming the reliance on fossil resources and mitigating climate change.
The Horizon Prizes celebrate the most exciting, contemporary chemical discoveries and innovation. These prizes are for teams or collaborations who are opening up new directions and possibilities in their field, through ground-breaking scientific developments.
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