Catalysis is central to today’s society. It is the key to producing fertilizers that support nearly half of the world’s population, converting oil into gasoline that fuels our cars, and cleaning pollutants from the air we breathe. Looking forward, catalysis will also be critical to transitioning to a more environmentally sustainable world. In the Resasco Catalysis Lab, we are interested in advancing the understanding of catalysis to guide the design of new, more efficient materials for sustainable technologies.
Questions we think about
What can electrocatalysis do for us?
In the future, chemical transformations will be driven by electricity in addition to heat. However, the use of electrochemical processes for sustainable fuel and chemical production requires breakthroughs in the design of catalysts and reactors to speed these reactions. We are interested in developing design principles for electro-catalytic materials and electrochemical reactors, and discovering new opportunities in electrochemical systems.
How do Catalysts change as they work?
Catalysts are not static materials. They can change their structure and properties in response to the environment they are exposed to. We are interested in how we can design catalysts to harness this dynamic behavior and access higher performance.
How does the environment around a catalyst change its activity?
The reaction environment surrounding a catalytic active site can have important influences on its behavior. We are interested in how we can optimize the structure of both the binding site and the non-reactive components in its vicinity to have higher control over chemical reactions.