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Cafer T. Yavuz received his B.S. degree in Chemistry (2001) from the Middle East Technical University, finishing the advanced curriculum in only 3 years and ranking 1st. When he was in high school, he attended the 29th and 30th International Chemistry Olympiads representing Turkey and won a silver and bronze medal. He was admitted to Rice University in 2001 with Welch scholarship and received his Master's and Ph.D. under the supervision of Dr. Vicki L. Colvin. His research focused on production of magnetic nanocrystals and their use in arsenic removal. His thesis work received Forbes magazine's "Top 5 nanotech breakthroughs of 2006" and selected as one of the “Six Ideas That Will Change The World" by the Esquire Magazine. He worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara with Dr. Galen Stucky on CO2 sequestration, conversion and co-activation with methane (CH4) until his appointment as an Assistant Professor at KAIST, South Korea in 2010. He was promoted to Associate Professor on September 2013 and jointly appointed at the Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He has been nominated twice for the teacher of the year award. Since 2020, he is a professor of chemistry at KAUST, Saudi Arabia with a research focus on nano and porous materials design and synthesis for applications in the environment, particularly for CO2 capture and conversion. He is an Editorial Board Member at Chem, a prestigious chemistry journal by Cell Press. He also serves on the boards of Cell Reports Physical Science, ACS Applied Energy Materials, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, and Advanced Sustainable Systems. He was an editor at RSC Advances and currently editing at Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology, a platinum open access journal. He has over 100 publications and 20 registered patents.
To devise a sustainable energy portfolio under the planetary and practicality constraints, we must consider a hybrid model of renewable-energy-powered low-carbon fossil fuel production as a transitional energy technology. Such untethered demand would also provide the natural growth and gradual implementation flexibility that the green hydrogen industry needs to build to scale. At the heart of a potential transitional energy technology platform is synthesis gas (syngas), a mixture of gaseous carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Syngas is currently the primary source of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles and has been the core building block in the chemicals industry for liquids, particularly alcohols, olefins, and low molecular weight fuels. We have recently developed a Ni-Mo-MgO nanocatalyst that facilitates syngas production from the dry reforming of methane without coking or sintering, even after 35 days of continuous operation. Since it is known that switching syngas production from steam reforming to dry reforming could provide gigatons of CO2 avoidance without significantly altering our lifestyle, this emissions relief could provide the necessary time for a successful implementation of future energy technologies. In such a syngas economy, chemicals and transition fuels would be made using syngas from dry reforming of hydrocarbons and green hydrogen water electrolysis. An estimated 15-50% reduction in carbon emissions is possible without any change to the infrastructure. Further reductions would be introduced if syngas was produced from a range of sources, such as biomass, waste, plastics, or paper, and the direct conversion of syngas to more chemicals was feasible.
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