The development of integrated CO₂ capture and conversion as a cornerstone of the net-zero transition is driven by ambitious goals and targets set by the European Commission, among others, under the European Green Deal. Achieving these targets is expected to create strong business cases, where carbon is no longer a costly liability but a valuable feedstock for sustainable fuels and chemicals. Based on these ambitions, the market for CO₂ capture and conversion technologies in Europe alone will grow into major opportunity, making it highly attractive for the European manufacturing and chemical industries to invest. However, the technology is not yet fully mature, which creates technical, economic, and scale-up risks during implementation. These uncertainties result in higher-than-expected costs and limit widespread adoption. Breakthrough innovations are therefore needed across the entire value chain—from efficient capture technologies to advanced catalytic processes—to reduce risks and accelerate cost reductions.
HyCARB is a national project in which multiple academic and industrial partners join forces to develop innovative and competitive processes for CO₂ utilization, with a strong focus on producing fuels and materials directly from industrial waste gases and CO₂ using renewable energy and green hydrogen. The aim is to significantly reduce emissions while strengthening the competitive position of the EU chemical sectors in a net-zero world
https://www.tno.nl/en/newsroom/2025/07/significant-impulse-sustainable-industry/. This PhD position is part of HyCARB project and it will focus on the development and evaluation of advanced materials, cell architectures and reactor concepts for CO2 conversion to syngas and high added value products.
About the group: The work will be carried out in the Catalytic and Electrochemical Processes for Electrochemical Interfaces group at DIFFER, led by Michail (Mihalis) Tsampas. The research work in the group is devoted to electrochemical membrane reactors for solar fuel production and the electrification of the chemical industry. Our work spans the full spectrum from material and component development to the design and operation of laboratory-scale systems, with the overarching goal of developing scalable solutions. We utilize a variety of polymeric and ceramic ion-conducting materials to couple renewable energy-driven processes with applications such as water electrolysis, nitrogen and carbon dioxide fixation.