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 →

BASF has introduced the novel X3D technology, a new additive manufacturing technology for catalysts based on 3D printing. Catalysts produced with this technology feature an open structure, resulting in a reduction of the pressure drop across the reactor and a high surface area, significantly improving the catalysts’ performance. BASF has... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington State University have developed a a process by which lignin can be selectively converted to jet-range aromatics at unprecedented carbon yields, providing a path toward a 100% drop-in sustainable aviation... Read more →

Nissan Motor has jointly developed a technology with Tohoku University’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences that inactivates viruses using catalyst active species for aerobic oxidation. The technology has potential applications for inactivating viruses by oxidizing, denaturing and degrading proteins and other substances on the virus surface. With oxygen in the air... Read more →

A research team led by Profs. CHEN Wei and WEI Wei from the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute (SARI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported a novel method that enables efficient CO2 electroreduction to CO by virtue of low-coordination chloride ion adsorption on a silver hollow fiber (Ag HF) electrode.... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Houston (UH), with colleagues from Central China Normal University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, have developed a two-electrode catalyst that relies on one compound to produce hydrogen and oxygen efficiently from both seawater and freshwater. A paper on their work... Read more →

Researchers at Korea University have developed high-performance, textile-based electrodes for watersplitting (WSE); the non-noblemetal-based electrodes can generate a large amount of hydrogen with low overpotentials and high operational stability. An open-access paper on their work is published in the RSC journal Energy & Environmental Science. An electrochemical water-splitting reaction offers... Read more →

Syzygy Plasmonics, LOTTE Chemical and LOTTE Fine Chemical (LOTTE Chemical HQ), and Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (SCOA) announced a joint development agreement to test a photocatalytic reactor for clean hydrogen production. The reactor will be installed and brought online in the second half of 2023 at LOTTE Chemical HQ facilities... Read more →

Although the thermocatalytic ammonia decomposition reaction (ADR) is an effective way to obtain clean hydrogen, it relies on the use of expensive and rare ruthenium (Ru)-based catalysts, making it not sustainable or economically feasible. Now, a team from the University at Buffalo, Southern Illinois University, University of South Carolina and... Read more →

Researchers at UCLA, with colleagues at UC Irvine, have designed a graphene-nanopocket-encaged platinum cobalt (PtCo@Gnp) nanocatalyst for fuel cells with good electrochemical accessibility and exceptional durability under a demanding ultralow PGM loading (0.070 mgPGM cm–2) due to the non-contacting enclosure of graphene nanopockets. The PtCo@Gnp delivers a state-of-the-art mass activity... Read more →

A study led by UCLA researchers developed a method for predicting platinum alloys’ potency and stability—two key indicators of how they will perform as catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells. Then, using that technique, they designed and produced an alloy that yielded excellent results under conditions approximating real-world use. The findings... Read more →

A team from the University of Buffalo (UB), Purdue University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with colleagues from other institutions, has developed a highly durable and active Fe–N–C catalyst for proton-exchange membrane fuel cells. The stability improvement... Read more →

Umicore will build a large-scale fuel-cell catalyst plant in Changshu in China to capture the fast emerging growth in fuel-cell technology. The plant will enable the accelerated transformation to hydrogen-based clean mobility, serving demand through to 2030. The greenfield facility is planned and prepared to be carbon-neutral from the start... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Michigan and McGill University in Canada report photochemical syngas synthesis using a core/shell Au@Cr2O3 dual cocatalyst in coordination with multistacked InGaN/GaN nanowires (NWs) with the sole inputs of CO2, water, and solar light. Their paper is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences... Read more →

BASF has worked with Shell to evaluate and de-risk BASF’s Puristar R0-20 and Sorbead Adsorption Technology for the use in green hydrogen production. The two technologies purify and dehydrate the product hydrogen stream from the water electrolysis process which can then be used for liquification and transportation, as an energy... Read more →

ExxonMobil has developed a unique process technology to enable the manufacture of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from renewable methanol. This expands upon ExxonMobil’s suite of technology solutions that are engineered to manufacture SAF from other biofeeds. SAF produced from renewable methanol can play an important role in helping the aviation... Read more →

After systematically studying multiple catalyst compositions, researchers at KAUST and Umicore have clarified the role of cerium (Ce) in Mn-based oxide catalysts for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx with NH3 at temperatures below 200 °C. An open-access paper on the study appears in Nature Communications. Recent developments in... Read more →

Researchers from Washington State University (WSU) and the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have devised an artificial enzyme that digests lignin, which has stubbornly resisted previous attempts to develop it into an economically useful energy source. An open-access paper on their work is published in Nature Communications.... Read more →

Using a hematite photocatalyst, a team led by researchers from Kobe University has succeeded in producing both hydrogen gas and hydrogen peroxide at the same time from sunlight and water. An open-access paper on the work is published in Nature Communications. Hydrogen has gained attention as one of the possible... Read more →

BASF has launched UpCore, a new service providing a cost-effective and sustainable technology upgrade from a standard ozone converter to an ozone-VOC (volatile organic compounds) converter for cleaner and healthier aircraft cabin air. UpCore replaces the catalyst core of an ozone-only converter with an ozone-VOC catalyst, a sustainable solution as... Read more →

Researchers at the Clemson Nanomaterials Institute (CNI) and their collaborators from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) in India discovered a novel way to combine curcumin—the substance in turmeric—and gold nanoparticles to create an electrode that requires 100 times less energy to convert ethanol or methanol into... Read more →

Methanol—a bio-based platform molecule that can be used directly as a fuel or fuel additive, and can also be used to produce bulk chemicals and drop-in fuels—is currently mainly produced from methane and coal via an indirect syngas route. Now, a team of researchers in China reports a novel approach... Read more →

A study by a team from The Ohio State University and Ford is providing insight into the deactivation mechanism of rhodium in three-way catalysts (TWC) for automotive emissions control. The study, which could enable more efficient usage of rhodium in TWCs, is published in the ACS journal Chemistry of Materials.... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Surrey (UK) are developing a process to capture carbon dioxide directly from the air and then use dynamic catalysis to create methanol—a valuable chemical that, made this way, could be carbon-negative. Its value could offset the cost of direct air capture. The carbon negative chemicals... Read more →

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) is developing new technologies for the extraction of hydrogen from liquid organic hydrogen carriers, with the support of National University of Singapore (NUS) and industry collaborators in Singapore and Japan—including Chiyoda Corporation, PSA Corporation, Sembcorp Industries, City Energy, Jurong Port, Singapore LNG corporation and... Read more →

Honeywell has developed new catalyst-coated membrane (CCMs) technology for green hydrogen production and will further test the technology with electrolyzer manufacturers. Green hydrogen, which is produced using an electrolyzer powered by renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, is expected to play an important role in the energy... Read more →

A team from the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Zhengzhou University in China has demonstrated a metal-free carbocatalyst—nitrogen-assembly carbons (NCs)—for the release of hydrogen from liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) even at ambient temperature, showing greater activity than transition metal–based catalysts. An open-access paper on their work is... Read more →

A research team in Korea has synthesized metal nanoparticles that can significantly improve the performance of hydrogen fuel cell catalysts by using the semiconductor manufacturing technology. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that the research team led by Dr. Sung Jong Yoo of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell... Read more →

The production of hydrogen by water splitting via electrolysis relies on two reactions—the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). OER and HER suffer from sluggish reactions kinetics due to high overpotentials (a measure of kinetic energy barriers). Thus, each requires highly effective catalysts—that generally use noble... Read more →

Researchers at Stanford University have shown that porous polymer encapsulation of metal-supported catalysts can drive the selectivity of CO2 conversion to hydrocarbons. Using this technique, they report orders of magnitude higher turnover frequencies for hydrocarbon formation compared to conventional catalysts. A paper on their work is published in Proceedings of... Read more →

BASF and Heraeus have agreed to form a joint venture (BASF: 50%; Heraeus: 50%) to recover precious metals from spent automotive catalysts. The new company, named BASF HERAEUS (China) Metal Resource Co., Ltd will be set up in Pinghu, China. The founding of the legal entity is targeted in Q1... Read more →

Chemists at Cornell University have discovered a class of nonprecious metal derivatives—transition metal nitrides (TMNs)—that can catalyze the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline fuel cells about as well as platinum, at a fraction of the cost. The researchers, led by Héctor D. Abruña, the Émile M. Chamot Professor in... Read more →

Researchers from Lehigh University, in collaboration with colleagues from the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), have developed an induced activation strategy to enhance the performance of the ternary Cu/Zu/AL2O3 catalyst towards the methanol steam reforming (MSR) reaction (used as a model reaction). Cu/Zu/AL2O3 is an important industrial... Read more →

Dry reforming of methane (DRM) is one promising approach to converting methane and carbon dioxide into chemical feedstock or syngas. However, DRM needs a stable and highly active catalyst for its commercialization. Metal-supported zeolites are widely used for this purpose, due to their microporous structure and chemical stability. In particular,... Read more →