SunCoChem project addresses the need of the European Chemical Industry to reduce their dependence on carbon feedstock by producing highly competitive and integrated solutions enabling the carbon-neutral production of energy and high-value chemicals.

SunCoChem provided a solution based on a competitive photoelectrocatalytic reactor to efficiently produce oxo-products from solar energy and CO₂ emissions from the European Chemical Industries. This was achieved by process intensification coupling a solar-driven carbon dioxide reduction to CO/water oxidation to O₂ with CC bond carbonylation reaction catalysed by novel multifunctional hybrid photoelectrocatalysts.

The project delivered materials with improved catalytic performance from cheap and earth–abundant raw building block with application in the solar-driven chemistry to produce chemicals by using renewable energy (sunlight) and renewable carbon sources (CO₂).