BASF signed a Cooperation Agreement with Plug Power, positioning BASF’s advanced DeOxo catalysts as an offer within Plug Power’s hydrogen liquefaction plants globally to enhance their market offerings, improving reliability and cost efficiency. BASF’s DeOxo catalysts, including the Purivate Pd15 product, offer exceptional catalyst performance at low temperatures, reducing the... Read more →

Amogy, a provider of ammonia-to-power solutions, announced the first pilot plant deployment of its advanced ammonia cracking catalyst with JGC Holdings Corporation (JGC), a global engineering company headquartered in Japan. This agreement is a key component of a pilot project designed to advance large-scale ammonia cracking technology for low-carbon hydrogen... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities discovered a new method by which a catalyst can be used to burn one molecule selectively in a mixture of hydrocarbons. This new method could help in the removal of pollutants and improve efficiency for industrial processes ranging from the production of... Read more →

California Catalysts (Calicat), formerly H2U Technologies, announced that generation 3 of its flagship product, the Amplifier zero-iridium PEMwe OER catalyst, has achieved an unprecedented activity milestone of 2 Volts at a current density over 2 A/cm². This breakthrough performance represents a long-sought step change in the pursuit of cost-effective green... Read more →

Smoltek Hydrogen, specializing in innovative solutions based on carbon nanotechnology, and Heraeus Precious Metals, a global leader in precious metal solutions, have signed a term sheet on a strategic collaboration on advanced iridium-based catalyst solutions for proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers. This collaboration marks a significant step toward developing the... Read more →

Johnson Matthey (JM) and Bosch have agreed to accelerate future projects together. The agreement confirms both parties’ intentions to develop and produce catalyst-coated membranes (CCM) for use in fuel cell stacks. JM CCMs are typically the heart of PEM electrolyzers. CCMs consist of precisely structured catalysts—typically platinum (cathode) and iridium... Read more →

Mattiq, a clean chemistry company, announced a strategic partnership with Heraeus Precious Metals, a global leader in the precious metals industry, to develop and commercialize advanced electrocatalyst materials for green hydrogen production. The companies will engineer low-iridium catalysts to reduce significantly the amount of this rare and critical raw material... Read more →

Scientists led by EPFL, the University of Copenhagen, and Shanghai University have developed a copper catalyst that can efficiently convert carbon dioxide into acetaldehyde, a key chemical used in manufacturing. The breakthrough offers a green alternative to fossil-fuel-based processes. Acetaldehyde is a vital chemical used in making everything from perfumes... Read more →

A research team from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and Cardiff University, has created a catalyst for hydrogen generation from ammonia that becomes more active with time. The novel material consists of nanosized ruthenium (Ru) clusters anchored on graphitized carbon. These... Read more →

Researchers at Tianjin University in China have designed a furrow-ridge cathode catalyst layer (FR-CCL) with carbon nanotube (CNT) supported Pt catalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with Pt/CNT FR-CCL shows high peak power density and durability compared to conventional Pt/C-MEA and Pt/CNT-MEA after the... Read more →

BASF has officially opened its new Catalyst Development and Solids Processing Center in Ludwigshafen, Germany. This research facility will serve as a hub for pilot-scale synthesis of chemical catalysts, enabling BASF to offer its global customers faster access to innovative technologies. This pilot plant will also be of central importance... Read more →

A research team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has found a way to thwart deactivation of catalysts for the dry reforming of methane. Dry reforming of methane converts methane and carbon dioxide into syngas, a valued mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used by oil... Read more →

BASF will invest in additional production capacity for its X3D technology, a new additive manufacturing technology for catalysts based on 3D printing. The plant will produce catalysts on an industrial scale and is expected to be operational in 2026. The X3D technology represents a transformative leap in catalyst design and... Read more →

Rice University researchers have developed a catalyst that could render steam methane reforming (SMR) entirely emissions-free by using light rather than heat to drive the reaction. SMR is currently responsible for more than half of global hydrogen production and is emissions-intensive. The new copper-rhodium photocatalyst sports an antenna-reactor design that,... Read more →

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now presented a method for electrocatalytically converting carbon dioxide into ethanol, which is then available as a sustainable raw material for chemical applications. According to Professor Carsten Streb from the JGU Department of Chemistry, the conversion technique, which has so far been... Read more →

A team of researchers from University of California Riverside, BASF, Virginia Tech and Brookhaven National Laboratory have mixed platinum (Pt) catalyst with zeolites to improve significantly catalytic performance in the selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) with H2 (H2-SCR), a process aiming at NOx removal from internal combustion engines... Read more →

A research team led by UCLA materials scientists and chemists has designed a new ultrafine platinum nanocatalyst with embedded cobalt oxide clusters that could make fuel cells more durable, nearly doubling the projected lifetime target set by the US Department of Energy (DOE). A study outlining the findings was published... Read more →

Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions have engineered a highly selective catalyst that can convert methane, a major component of natural gas, into methanol, an easily transportable liquid fuel, in a single, one-step reaction. As described in a paper just published in... Read more →

BASF announced the commercial launch of Fourtiva, a new fluidized catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst for gasoil to mild resid feedstock. Fourtiva incorporates BASF’s newest Advanced Innovative Matrix (AIM) and the Multiple Frameworks Topology (MFT) technologies to achieve an optimized catalyst design to maximize butylene yields and selectivity over propylene while... Read more →

BASF Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions (ECMS) commenced construction of its production facility for green hydrogen and fuel cell components in Budenheim, Germany, near Frankfurt. The products produced at this site will include newly developed low-iridium-loaded catalyst coated membranes (CCMs), a key functional part for proton exchange membrane (PEM) water... Read more →

The proton exchange membrane electrolysis of water (PEMWE) is a critical process for hydrogen generation. However, the limited ability of electrons and protons to permeate the membrane and the inefficient arrangement of the transport structure in the catalyst layer (CL) presents significant obstacles to the widespread adoption of PEMWE. A... Read more →

National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) researchers recently scaled up hydrogen production tests by increasing the catalyst load from 500 grams to 4.5 kilograms, a significant step toward advancing hydrogen production technology. The patented NETL catalyst helps to enable a process called catalytic methane pyrolysis (CMP), which breaks down methane into... Read more →

The predominant method for industrial green diesel production involves hydrotreating technology using sulfided CoMo or NiMo catalysts. However, the maintenance of these catalysts requires continuous replenishment of the sulfur source during operation, leading to increased costs, equipment corrosion, and sulfur contamination. Hence, the quest for a non-sulfur catalytic system to... Read more →

Smoltek Nanotech Holding AB announced that one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers is testing custom-made prototypes of a cell material that can significantly reduce the amount of iridium in an electrolyzer cell. The custom-made prototypes delivered by the subsidiary Smoltek Hydrogen have the potential to reduce the iridium load... Read more →

A research team led by Principal Researcher Young Kim from the Heat Pump Research Center of the Research Institute of Carbon-neutral Energy Machinery of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has successfully developed a highly efficient microchannel reactor which reduces the required catalyst amount to 30% for electrofuel... Read more →

A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has found an unconventional way to improve catalysts made of more than one material. The solution demonstrates a path to designing catalysts with greater activity, selectivity and stability. A catalyst normally uses a support to... Read more →

Catalyst stability and expense remain serious obstacles to widespread adoption of hydrogen generation using proton-exchange membrane electrolysis. In a study published in Science, researchers led by Ryuhei Nakamura at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan report a new method that reduces the amount of iridium needed... Read more →

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University have developed an innovative Au@Cu7S4 yolk@shell photocatalyst which is responsive to both visible and near infrared (NIR) region wavelengths. This photocatalyst has demonstrated remarkable efficiency in solar hydrogen production, achieving an excellent quantum yield under illumination by... Read more →

Researchers from Tohoku University have identified a promising alternative to the conventional means of synthesizing ammonia, one that is more environmentally friendly. Details of their research are published in an open-access paper in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. The Haber-Bosch synthesis, developed in the early 20th century to synthesize... Read more →

BASF process catalysts, a leading provider of innovative catalyst technology, announced a new collaboration with Envision Energy. The collaboration aims to develop further the conversion of green hydrogen and CO2 into e-methanol through an advanced, dynamic process design. Backed by their respective expertise, the two companies aim to optimize the... Read more →

Researchers at the Energy Materials Research Center of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) with colleagues at Hyundai R&D have developed a nanocatalyst for high-temperature water electrolysis that can retain a high current density of more than 1A/cm2 for a long time at temperatures above 600 ˚C. An... Read more →

MIT researchers and colleagues have demonstrated a way to control precisely the size, composition, and other properties of nanoparticles key to the reactions involved in a variety of clean energy and environmental technologies. They did so by leveraging ion irradiation, a technique in which beams of charged particles bombard a... Read more →

Researchers from the US and China have identified a previously unknown reaction mechanism that addresses the very short lifetimes of Li-sulfur batteries.Their paper is published in the journal Nature. Lithium-sulfur batteries can store two to three times more energy in a given volume, resulting in longer vehicle ranges. Their lower... Read more →

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have discovered a previously unknown key mechanism that could inform the development of new, more effective catalysts for abating NOx emissions from combustion engines burning diesel or low-carbon fuels. An open-access paper on their work is published in Nature Communications. SCR of NOx... Read more →

A joint research team from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and collaborators have developed a stable artificial photocatalytic system that is more efficient than natural photosynthesis. The new system mimics a natural chloroplast to convert carbon dioxide in water into methane, very efficiently using light. A paper on this... Read more →

A team from Nanjing University, Hubei Normal University and Zhejiang University has developed a cobalt-doped graphdiyne catalyst for catalytically decomposing ammonia (NH3) to generate H2. The composite catalyst significantly enhances the reactivity and stability of ammonia decomposition. In a paper in the journal Fuel, the researchers report that the Co-doped... Read more →

Airbus, BMW Group and Quantinuum, world leaders in mobility and quantum technologies, have developed a hybrid quantum-classical workflow to speed up future research using quantum computers to simulate quantum systems, focusing on the chemical reactions of catalysts in fuel cells. In a new technical paper, “Applicability of Quantum Computing to... Read more →

BASF has completed the carve-out of its mobile emissions catalysts and precious metal services businesses and named the separate legal entity BASF Environmental Catalyst and Metal Solutions (ECMS). The company’s intention to carve out the entity was first announced in December 2021 with an expected completion timeframe of 18 months.... Read more →

A new study by researchers from Washington State University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has found that a catalyst using a single or just a few palladium atoms removed 90% of unburned methane from natural gas engine exhaust at low temperatures. The work is published in the journal Nature Catalysis.... Read more →

A multi-institutional team led by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) has developed a low-cost cobalt-based catalyst for the production of hydrogen in a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer (PEMWE). Other contributors include DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Giner Inc.. Proton... Read more →

Researchers led by engineers at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have proposed a low-cost, cactus-inspired nickel-based material to help split water more cheaply and efficiently. The material is described in a paper in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Current electrolysis techniques to split water rely... Read more →

Chemists at the University of Kansas and the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have unraveled the entire reaction mechanism for a key class of water-splitting catalysts. Their work was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It’s very rare that you can get a... Read more →

A research team led by Professor Yong-Tae Kim and PhD candidate Sang-Hoon You at Pohang University Of Science & Technology (POSTECH) has developed a selective catalyst that curbs corrosion in fuel cells used for hydrogen-powered automobiles. By tailoring the hydrogen oxidation reaction to match the concentration of hydrogen in the... Read more →

Using a novel combination of cryogenic transmission electron tomography and deep learning, EPFL researchers have provided a first look at the nanostructure of platinum catalyst layers, revealing how they could be optimized for fuel cell efficiency. Most proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) catalysts contain platinum—a scarce and precious metal. There... Read more →

Butadiene, an essential component of synthetic rubber, is currently produced by the petrochemical industry from fossil reserves. Butadiene can also be produced from ethanol by one of two primary methods: Lebedev, which converts ethanol over one catalyst in one reactor, and Ostromisslensky, which converts a mixture of ethanol and acetaldehyde... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and Fujitsu have applied quantum-inspired computing to find the promising, previously unexplored chemical family of Ru-Cr-Mn-Sb-O2 as acidic oxygen evolution reaction catalysts for hydrogen production. The best catalyst shows a mass activity eight times higher than state-of-the-art RuO2... Read more →

IonQ announced the next stages of its partnership with Hyundai Motor Company to develop the vehicles of the future. Hyundai Motor Company and IonQ will work to develop on IonQ’s quantum computers machine vision algorithms capable of conducting object detection on three dimensional data from autonomous vehicles. Additionally, the two... Read more →

Rice University researchers and colleagues at Princeton and Syzygy Plasmonics have developed a plasmonic photocatalyst for the direct decomposition of hydrogen sulfide gas into hydrogen and sulfur, as an alternative to the industrial Claus process. A paper on the work appears in ACS Energy Letters. An illustration of the light-powered,... Read more →

Researchers from Osaka University have demonstrated a proof-of-concept for a novel molecular hydrogen production method that bypasses the need for expensive purification steps. They developed a system where hydrogen is separated and stored in liquid organic hydrogen carriers by catalysis of triaryl boranes in one seamless process. An open-access paper... Read more →

Researchers have developed a nickel-stabilized, ruthenium dioxide (Ni-RuO2) anode catalyst for proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis. The ruthenium—a more abundant precious metal—serves as a promising alternative to the more rare and expensive iridium—currently the practical anode catalyst for electrolysis. The Ni-RuO2 catalyst shows high activity and durability in acidic... Read more →