Current research in the fields of Hydrogen and Power-to-X at the Chair 1 of Technical Chemistry

At the Chair 1 of Technical Chemistry, research is currently being carried out in the areas of hydrogen and power-to-X within the framework of three doctoral theses. All three topics can be summarized under the generic term of heterogeneous catalysis and are fundamentally concerned with the reaction of green hydrogen and carbon dioxide to methane and methanol, respectively. The aim is to use both molecules as chemical energy storage systems decoupled from the supply of renewable energies. A short summary of the research activities is given in the supplied figure.

The activities at the Chair 1 of Technical Chemistry are located along the process chain of synthesis, characterization and testing of novel catalysts. Following co-precipitation, 3D printing is also used to produce catalytically active solid catalysts. To investigate the catalytic activity and to derive structure-activity relationships, a detailed knowledge of the properties of the catalysts, such as pore structure and specific metal surface etc., is mandatory. In addition to standard characterization methods such as N₂ physisorption and X-ray diffraction, transient measurement techniques such as temperature-programmed desorption and frontal chromatography are also used for this purpose. The investigation of deactivation behaviors are also carried out.

Some further publications on methanol synthesis and CO₂ methanation are listed here:

Ewald, S., Standl, S., & Hinrichsen, O. (2018). Characterization of nickel catalysts with transient methods. Applied Catalysis A: General, 549, 93-101. DOI: 10.1016/j.apcata.2017.09.023
Burger, T., Koschany, F., Thomys, O., Köhler, K., & Hinrichsen, O. (2018). CO2 methanation over Fe-and Mn-promoted co-precipitated Ni-Al catalysts: Synthesis, characterization and catalysis study. Applied Catalysis A: General, 558, 44-54. DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.apcata.2018.03.021
Fichtl, M. B., Schumann, J., Kasatkin, I., Jacobsen, N., Behrens, M., Schlögl, R., ... & Hinrichsen, O. (2014). Counting of oxygen defects versus metal surface sites in methanol synthesis catalysts by different probe molecules. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 53(27), 7043-7047. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201400575