Research

JACS Communication on finite size effects on monolayer catalysts

Having been a PhD student in the group of Prof. Manos Mavrikakis at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Prof. Lars Grabow had an early exposure to monolayer catalysts, or near surface alloys. At the time theory was able to make exciting predictions regarding the catalytic properties of these hypothetical materials, but only a hand-full of …

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Artwork selected for cover of Special Issue in ChemCatChem!

Our contribution to the special issue on “Catalysis for New Energy Technology” was selected for the journal cover of ChemCatChem. The work originated from a collaboration with Bill Epling’s group and the cover shows the electron density change in methane during its activation over a palladium catalyst. Hieu Doan created the artwork with the help …

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Artwork selected for cover of Chemistry: A European Journal

Graduate student Arian Ghorbanpour, co-advised by Prof. J. Rimer, has contributed computational results that explain the sorption behavior of ultrastable zeolite GIS polymorphs. In particular, his work shows that GIS is not a good framework structure for carbon dioxide sorption; instead, it is an excellent framework structure to separate water from other small molecules. The …

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Article on CO oxidation over gold catalysts receives Best Fundamental Paper Award from the AIChE South Texas Section

The South Texas Section (STS) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) selected our paper “The critical role of water at the gold-titania interface in catalytic CO oxidation” for the Best Fundamental Paper Award 2014. Hieu Doan and Lars Grabow accepted the award on behalf of all co-authors, which include Johnny Saavedra, Chris Pursell …

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Why are Ru/TiO2 catalysts so selective for direct deoxygenation?

Graduate student Byeongjin Baek’s computational work on elucidating the mechanism of direct deoxygenation of phenolic compounds on Ru/TiO2 catalysts has resulted in a new understanding of the roles of the support and the ruthenium metal nanoparticle. We find that for the selective C-OH cleavage to occur, it is necessary that the support can provide a …

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Yuying Song and Melanie Hazlett win SWCS Poster Awards

Congratulations to Yuying and Melanie for winning best poster awards at the 2015 Spring Symposium of the Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS)! Yuying and Melanie both work on a NSF/DOE sponsored team project to improve catalyst composition and architecture for emissions control from advanced low temperature combustion engines. Read the full story here.

Water-mediated proton hopping research published in Science

Our work on water-assisted hydrogen diffusion on FeO/Pt(111) has been published in Science! Thanks to all co-authors who have contributed to this success: Flemming Besenbacher, Manos Mavrikakis, Lindsay Merte, Guowen Peng, Ralf Bechstein, Felix Riebolt, Carrie Farberow, Wilhelmine Kundernatsch, Stefan Wendt, Eric Laesgaard. Read more: UHEngeneering news ,Science Daily, Eurekalert, Realn3ws, myScience News ,Decoded Science,ChemEurope, ChemWeb