Catalysis
Experts at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory contributed to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences report identifying the catalysis research needed to stretch the fossil fuel supply and to make biomass, hydrogen, and sunshine significant energy sources. Enlarged View
Catalysis is a particular strength of PNNL, taking advantage of the historical emphasis on chemistry and chemical engineering at this DOE national laboratory. Our catalysis programs range from fundamental science to process development across the Lab, with significant activities in the following areas:
- Fundamental catalysis science
- Catalytic vehicle emission measurement and control
- Solid acid catalysis
- Heterogeneous catalysis of bio-based feedstock
- Catalyst and process development using microchannel reactors
- Catalyst materials for solid-oxide fuel cells.
Fundamental catalytic studies. Our basic science takes advantage of the Lab's internationally recognized strengths in understanding the surface chemistry and physics of metal oxides, as well as our unsurpassed capabilities and expertise in computational chemistry, chemical physics, and magnetic resonance spectroscopies. The focus of our basic research involves furthering a fundamental understanding of the chemical reaction mechanisms that occur on catalyst surfaces, including an identification of the catalytic sites directly involved in the rate-limiting elementary processes. The grand challenge is to develop precise control of chemical transformations using catalysis.
A more durable catalytic material for fuel cells has been discovered by scientists at PNNL's Institute for Interfacial Catalysis, Princeton University, and Washington State University. They combined graphene with metal oxide nanoparticles to stabilize a fuel cell catalyst for better catalytic action. Enlarged View
Specific catalysis research includes
- Reactive intermediates in the catalytic transformation of organic substrates
- Selectivity and mechanisms of oxide-catalyzed nitrogen oxide reactions
- Catalysis by early transition metal oxides
- Mechanisms of transition metal catalyzed conversions of carbon dioxide
- The synthesis and characterization of nano-dimensional oxide/oxide nanostructures, and mechanisms of their catalytic chemistry driven by thermal and electromagnetic energy.
This research involves developing fundamental mechanistic studies of intermediates in hydrocarbon hydroprocessing, selective partial oxidation and simple acid-catalyzed reactions of hydrocarbons, catalyzed NO reduction, electron/hole pair chemistry of important surface reactions such as water splitting and hydrocarbon oxidation, and green chemistry use of CO2.
Theory and synthesis. New theoretical approaches are developed and applied to characterize structural, electronic, and spectroscopic properties of catalysts and adsorbed reaction intermediates. These computational studies are intimately coupled to the experimental efforts in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis.
Novel catalyst synthesis methods are being used to provide nano-dimensional catalysts with well-defined geometric and electronic structures to minimize the traditional issue of extracting detailed molecular site information from ensemble-averaged experiments.
Contacts: Johannes Lercher, Chuck Peden, Michel Dupuis