BIOGRAPHY BÁRBARA POLESSO:

Dr. Bárbara Polesso earned her PhD in Material Technology and Engineering from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), during which she worked in development of materials, combining ionic liquids and solid materials for CO2 capture. During her Master and PhD, she has worked on major research projects funded by Oil companies including Shell and PETROBRAS. Now, Bárbara is a postdoctoral researcher at ICFO (CO2MAP group), working in CO2 conversion and pursuing advances in new catalysts for CO2 electrochemical reduction into value products.

BIOGRAPHY VIKTORIA GOLOVANOVA:

Dr. Viktoria Golovanova is a postdoctoral researcher at ICFO, performing research related to electrochemical
CO2 and carbonate reduction to multi-carbon products, focusing on materials design and characterization.
Having a background of Theoretical Physics, she has experience in DFT modeling, gas sensing, as well as
thermal, photo- and electrocatalysis. Viktoria obtained her PhD in Materials Science from IREC and Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), studying plasmon-enhanced catalytic reactions for solar fuels

LECTURE: "Decarbonization technologies: Carbon capture and Utilization"

The global climate and energy challenges demand an urgent shift from fossil fuel to renewable energy sources and to the development of carbon-neutral processes. CO2 capture and utilization (CCU) is required in the long term to achieve this goal. We will present a general overview of CO2 capture and utilization technologies. We will show the challenges associated with the upstream capture of CO2 from single-point emitters and the atmosphere. For CO2 utilization, we will focus on CO2 electroreduction, presenting recent advances in CO2 conversion into small value-added molecules and the challenges associated with separation of the target
product (downstream).