The pandemic crisis, the numerous public demonstrations in support of climate and ecological justice, and the recent energetic crisis have pointed out the actual importance of reaching a rapid and complete ecological transition towards technological sustainability and energetic independence. Even if it is well known that the quality of life of the global population is strictly related with the degree of accessibility to energy sources, this simple assumption hides behind itself several issues and criticalities, one above all the correlation existing between the remarkable ecological implications caused by traditional fossil fuels extraction, motions and consumption (with emission of greenhouse gases, GHG, in the atmosphere) for providing energy, and the increment in soils, water, and air pollution at the basis of the serious climate change that is affecting our planet. The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), part of the Next Generation EU financial program, aims at accomplishing relevant scientific and technological advancements in the direction of the green revolution and ecological transition. In this context, photo(electro)chemistry is a very promising and appealing technology able to accomplish the conversion of renewable sources into fuels for energy applications in a greener way.

Hence, photo(electro)catalyzed processes involving the CO2 (the major GHG from air pollution) reduction into valuable C2+ products (CO2RR), and hydrogen evolution (HER) from water splitting are among the major promising chemical routes for energy production, alternatives to the traditional fossil fuels. The possibility of exploiting these routes to produce energy at large scale is still strongly affected by the selection of both promising catalysts and suitable process parameters, thus fundamental research is needed to fully understand the driving factors that allow these technologies to be fully exploitable.

The PERFECT project aims at investigating in depth the photo(electro)-induced catalytic activities of Cu-containing compounds in CO2RR and HER, by monitoring how changes at the catalyst and process parameters level might enhance the yield of conversion and selectivity of the final products. This approach requires a preliminary survey of the different catalysts (Milestone 1), a deep investigation of possible morphological effects (Milestone 2), and the investigation of possible effects induced by process parameters (Milestone 3). This way, important technological guidelines useful for addressing the still unsolved technological demands in terms of the efficient design of both catalyst and process will be provided.

Hence, to realize the project aims, we set up a relatively young and multidisciplinary consortium made up of scientists with expertise in the synthesis of catalytic materials (Project PI, R. Nisticò, UNIMIB), their application in photo(electro)catalysis (M.V. Dozzi, UNIMI), and advanced characterizations (L. Mino, UNITO).