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Chemistry and catalysis RSS feed

Catalysts are the unsung heroes of chemistry, accelerating reactions used to make fertilizers, fuels and consumer products. Our work aims to make catalysts more efficient and reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Energy sciences

Depiction of four techniques used to study a single-atom catalyst.

News Feature

The award recognizes Aitbekova's work on catalysts, including a new catalyst that may revolutionize car emission controls.

A portrait of a woman wearing a tan shirt.
News Feature

Researchers at the University of Leeds deepened their understanding of a synthetic detergent without ever setting foot in the lab where their experiments took...

An X-ray beam line guide points toward a gold-colored piece of laboratory equipment.
News Feature

Anchoring individual iridium atoms on the surface of a catalytic particle boosted its performance in carrying out a reaction that’s been a bottleneck for...

Illustration showing surface of a catalyst as a lattice work of atoms, with single iridium molecules held above it on tiny 8-sided structures to facilitate splitting of water molecules seen floating above
Press Release

The work sheds light on the web of hydrogen bonds that gives water its strange properties, which play a vital role in many chemical...

UED Water
News Feature

Their work aims to bridge two approaches to driving the reaction – one powered by heat, the other by electricity – with the goal...

A ball-and-stick illustration of a single nickel atom (green) bonded to nitrogen atoms (blue) on the surface of a carbon material. The arrangement allows the nickel atoms to catalyze two types of reactions involved in making fuel from CO2.
News Feature

An international team led by SLAC/Stanford Professor Ed Solomon used a tantalizing principle borrowed from nature to turn harmful methane into useful methanol.

Hannah Rhoda with the resonance Raman spectroscopy equipment at Stanford
News Feature

Measuring the process in unprecedented detail gives them clues to how to minimize the problem and protect battery performance.

Illustration of oxygen atoms leaving a lithium-ion battery as lithium flows in alongside a battery whose energy is being sapped by this process
News Feature

The Horizon Prizes celebrate the most exciting, contemporary chemical science at the cutting edge of research and innovation.

ultrafast X-ray scattering
News Feature

From the invisible world of elementary particles to the mysteries of the cosmos, recipients of this prestigious award for early career scientists explore nature...

Panofsky fellows
News Feature

Edward Hohenstein, Emma McBride and Caterina Vernieri study what happens to molecules hit by light, recreate extreme states of matter like those inside stars...

Early Career Awardees 2021
News Feature

With a new suite of tools, scientists discovered exactly how tiny plate-like catalyst particles carry out a key step in that conversion – the...

Illustration of nanoscale catalyst particles.
News Feature

Scientists have documented a process that makes these next-gen batteries lose charge – and eventually some of their capacity for storing energy – even...