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 →

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 →