Prof. Atsushi Urakawa

Catalysis

Group Leader:
Atsushi Urakawa

Administrative Support:
Aurora Càceres

Postdoctoral Researchers:

Atul Bansode / Jordi Ampurdanès / Rohit Gaikwad / Marta Borges / Rui Huang (until May)

PhD Students:

Juan José Corral / Lingjun Hu / Silvia Caminero (until April) / Nat Phongprueksathat / Sorin Bunea / Donato Pinto

Visiting Students:

Eric Schuler (June) / Erwin  Lam (October)

Summer Fellows:
Amelia Billings

Summary

The Urakawa group is focused in the rational improvement and design of heterogeneous catalytic processes based on solid comprehension of the elementary reaction steps and the transformation mechanisms in order to minimize risks and damages of chemical processes on environment while achieving high efficiencies in conversion, selectivity, and energy usage. This ambitious goal is pursued by an interdisciplinary experimental-theoretical approach; in situ spectroscopy and theoretical modeling for solid understanding of the processes as well as reaction engineering to maximize the efficiencies. Among others, one of the major reactions they currently takle is heterogeneous catalytic conversion of CO2 into fuels and useful chemicals at high efficiency, so that the carbon-cycle, which has generally an open end due to burning of fossil fuels and their release as CO2 into atmosphere, can be closed for a sustainable development.

Publications

‘Towards a continuous formic acid synthesis: a two-step carbon dioxide hydrogenation in flow’
H. C. Reymond, J. J. Corral-Pérez, A. Urakawa, P. R. von Rohr
React. Chem. Eng., 2018, 3, 912-919

‘Decisive roles of perimeter sites in silica-supported Ag nanoparticles in selective hydrogenation of CO2 to methyl formate in the presence of methanol’
J. J. Corral-Pérez, A. Bansode, C. S. Praveen, A. Kokalj, H. Reymond, A. Comas-Vives, J. VandeVondele, C. Copéret, P. Rudolf Von Rohr, A. Urakawa
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140 (42), 13884–13891
Adv. Mater. Interfaces. 2018, 5 (9), 1701585

‘Synergistic interplay of Zn and Rh-Cr promoters on Ga2O3-based photocatalysts for water splitting’
M. Borges Ordoño, S. Yasumura, Pieter Glatzel, A. Urakawa
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 2018, 20, 23515-23521

MORE PUBLICATIONS

‘Water vapor electrolysis with proton-conducting graphene oxide nanosheets’
Kida, Y. Kuwaki, A. Miyamoto, N. L. Hamidah, K. Hatakeyama, A. T. Quitain, M. Sasaki, A. Urakawa
ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2018, 6 (9), 11753–11758

‘Unravelling the role of oxygen vacancies in the mechanism of the reverse water-gas-shift reaction by operando DRIFTS and UV-Vis spectroscopy’
L. F. Bobadilla, S. Ivanova, J. L. Santos, J. A. Odriozola, A. Urakawa
ACS Catal. 2018, 8 (8), 7455–7467

‘Continuous CO2 capture and reduction in one process: CO2 methanation over unpromoted and promoted Ni/ZrO2’
L. Hu, A. Urakawa
J. CO2 Util. 2018, 25, 323-329

‘Versatile IR spectroscopy combined with synchrotron XAS-XRD: Chemical, electronic and structural insights during thermal treatment of MOF materials’
S. Hinokuma, G. Wiker, T. Suganuma, A. Bansode, D. Stoian, S. Caminero-Huertas, S. Molina, A. Shafir, M. Rønning, W. van Beek, A. Urakawa
Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 2018, 2018 (17), 1847-1853

Projects

Urakawa Research Group
AGAUR | Ref: 2017 SGR 1633
Call identifier: SGR 2017-2019

Continuous Catalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Chemical Energy Carriers
Ministerio | Ref: CTQ2016-75499-R

Oxidative upgrading of light alkanes by unsteady-state operation
Ref: JST PRESTO

SLOWVIB
Understanding low frequency vibrations critical in heterogeneous catalytic reactions
Ministerio | Ref: EUIN2017-89041
Call identifier: MINECO

Theses Supervised

Marta Borges
October 25thh, 2018
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
 “Insights into the co-catalyst effects in light-driven reactions for water splitting and carbon dioxide reduction”

Features

Unveiling intermediates
http://www.iciq.org/unveiling-intermediates/