Probably, two of the most important challenges are the decrease of the high dependence on fossil-fuel sources, and the environmental concern associated to the excessive greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, to the atmosphere due to the over-consumption of fossil fuels. In the present project, it has been proposed the chemical reuse of CO2 towards methanol as chemical platform to obtain synthetic hydrocarbons and other value-added products, such as olefins, attempting to reduce the high dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels and, at the same time, controlling the environmental carbon footprint.

In this sense, excellent results have been achieved for: 1) the design of phosphorus-based porous materials for their use as selective CO2 adsorbents; 2) the design of multifunctional catalysts based on Fe2O3-zeolite for the direct transformation of CO2 into products with high added value (light olefins or liquid fuels); 3) the complex reaction mechanisms associated to the transformation of methanol into olefins (MTO) have been rationalized thanks to the combination of computational calculations and experimental results, which will allow to maximize the production of industrially-relevant light olefins from CO2.