The first speaker of the webinar was Dr. Carmen Ciotonea with a presentation entitled: Heterogeneous Catalysis with Transition Metal (Oxide) Nanoparticles for energy applications.

She emphasized that controlling, the nanoparticle size, the morphostructural properties and the chemical and thermal stability of metal (or oxide) NPs, in order to improve the durability of the materials during the reaction. Such features are of high importance during the synthesis of materials in order to design performant catalysts. In fact, activation at high temperature as well as prolonged use in reaction generally results in a significant modification of the structural properties of the NPs and fast deactivation of the catalyst. Therefore Dr. Ciotonea developed new ways of preparing highly dispersed and thermally stable materials. Among the highlights of her research activity, there is notably the development of the melt infiltration method, allowing the synthesis of oxides of transition metals with precisely controlled sizes between 1 nm and 10 nm by selective confinement within micro- or mesopores. The evaluation of catalytic performances of the prepared NPs was demonstrated for reaction such as methanation, dry reforming, ammonia production and biofuel produced by hydrodeoxygenation of lignin derived molecules. In all of the selected reactions was noticed the benefic effect of small nanoparticles, which were found to be highly resistant in temperature and on stream reaction conditions.

The second speaker of the webinar was Dr. Roberto Fiorenza with a presentation entitled: Exploring the potentiality of the photothermo-catalysis for environmental and energy applications.

He showed the versatility of the photothermo-catalysis applied in different reactions focused on the solar fuels production. Specifically, with not-critical and sustainable catalysts that own both thermo-catalytic (redox) and photocatalytic features it was possible to obtain higher performance compared to the bare thermocatalytic and photocatalytic approaches. The total oxidation of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) was successfully obtained with a considerable save of energy with MnO_x-ZrO₂ composites that permitted to exploit an improved Mars-Van Krevelen solar-assisted thermocatalytic mechanism. Furthermore, the obtained CO₂ can be converted into solar fuels using an integrated approach able to produce high-added value chemicals from air pollutants and using CuO_x/TiO₂-CeO₂ composites with a photothermo-co-catalysis. The possibility to tune the catalytic conditions and the combination of several porous catalytic supports as phyllosilicates or hydrotalcites with semiconductors established new synergisms that led to increase the catalytic performance and to efficiently valorize the CO₂. These concepts was explained in the last part of the presentation concerning the photo-driven thermocatalytic CO₂ methanation with peculiar SiC/hydrotalcites-derived catalysts that also exhibited self-heating effects that boosted up the photothermo-catalysis, therefore improving the CH₄ yieds.