Abhay Dokania completed his PhD at the KAUST Catalysis Center on “Multifunctional catalyst design for the valorization of CO₂.” During his PhD, Abhay focused on developing multifunctional catalysts for CO₂ hydrogenation, an emerging technology that required screening many catalyst formulations and generating high quality data. Throughout his work, he relied on the Flowrence® high throughput system, which he credits for enabling him to progress at a pace that would otherwise have taken significantly longer.

PhD Research Overview

Rapid climate change driven by rising atmospheric CO₂ is a major global challenge that requires multiple coordinated solutions. One promising approach is the Circular Carbon Economy, which captures CO₂ and converts it into fuels and chemicals using renewable energy. CO₂‑neutral fuels not only prevent additional emissions but can enable large‑scale energy storage to mitigate the intermittent nature of renewable sources of energy and can be deployed without major changes to existing energy infrastructure.

Abhay’s doctoral research centered on designing multifunctional heterogeneous catalysts for the thermal hydrogenation of CO₂ as a particularly attractive route to circular fuels. By combining metal or metal‑oxide catalysts with zeolites in one‑pot reactors, product distributions and yields could be optimized. The designed catalysts were further studied by applying advanced characterization to elucidate active species and reaction mechanism pathways.

The thesis work was conducted at the KAUST Catalysis Center, where rapid exploration of different catalyst formulations was essential. The need to study a wide variety of catalyst designs made experimentation highly demanding, both in volume and in accuracy.

Flowrence® in His Research

For Abhay, the Flowrence high‑throughput system was indispensable. Working in a field where CO₂ hydrogenation was still in its early stages, he needed a platform that could handle complex experimental matrices, generate consistent data, and support rapid iteration of catalyst designs.

Flowrence delivered on all fronts:

• It enabled him to compress months of experimentation into weeks, drastically accelerating research timelines.
• Its precise flow distribution ensured that catalytic results were reliable and repeatable.
• Its throughput allowed him to dedicate more time to deeper scientific interpretation and the publication of impactful results.

One of Abhay’s fondest memories from his PhD was spending “many happy hours” processing the large, high‑quality datasets that Flowrence produced, moments that ultimately strengthened his scientific output and contributed to his decision to join Avantium after graduating.

Since CO₂ hydrogenation is a relatively new process, it was necessary to study a large number of catalysts in order to optimize the catalyst design. The use of Flowrence therefore enabled me to complete work in weeks that would otherwise have taken months.

Abhay Dokania

Did you use Flowrence during your PhD? We’d love to hear your story — reach out to us!