Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the like-a-video-card-drive dept.

The industrial catalysts of the future won't just speed up reactions, they'll control how chemical processes work and determine how much of a particular product is made.

A team of researchers led by Phillip Christopher, assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering, demonstrated this—as well as how these catalysts look in action—in a paper published Monday, Sept. 19, in the journal Nature Chemistry.

Titled, "Adsorbate-mediated strong metal-support interactions in oxide-supported Rh catalysts," the paper describes a new approach to dynamically tune how a catalyst operates, enabling the researchers to control and optimize the product made in the reaction. The team, which includes scientists from the University of California, Irvine and Columbia University, also used advanced microscopy and spectroscopy approaches to view the catalyst in action on an atomic scale.

The researchers focused on an important chemical reaction that involves the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and synthetic natural gas. The benefits of this reaction are two-fold: it offers the potential for the removal of harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the carbon monoxide and natural gas produced can be used as a chemical precursor and fuel, respectively. The team focused on understanding how the catalyst drives the reaction at the atomic scale, which will allow researchers to modify the catalyst's properties to increase efficiency in the reaction.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:08PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday September 22 2016, @06:08PM (#405211)

    Makes you wonder how some people still manage to botch executions all these years later...

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2