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Catalysts are the unsung heroes of chemistry, accelerating reactions used to make fertilizers, fuels and consumer products. SUNCAT’s focus is on improving catalysts for making chemicals and fuels with renewable energy.

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Illustration of nanocrystals forming into superlattices at SLAC's SSRL

News Brief

The team reduced the amount of expensive platinum group metals needed to make an effective cell and found a new way to test future...

An illustration of a thin film resembling dry, cracked earth.
News Feature

Researchers demonstrate a way to remove the potent greenhouse gas from the exhaust of engines that burn natural gas.  

Illustration of bubbles of methane on surface of catalyst
News Feature

The SLAC-Stanford team pulled hydrogen directly from ocean waters. Their work could help efforts to generate low-carbon fuel for electric grids, cars, boats and...

This photograph shows ocean water funneling over rocks on about half of the photograph and deeper ocean water on the other part of the photograph. It is a view of the ocean from above, in the sky.
News Feature

Two GEM Fellows reflect on their summer internships at SLAC and share their thoughts on representation and mentorship.

Nate Keyes and Zariq George
News Feature

Encapsulating precious-metal catalysts in a web-like alumina framework could reduce the amount needed in catalytic converters – and our dependency on these scarce metals.

A web of red material encapsulates blue polyhedrons.
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
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

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

The surprising results offer a way to boost the activity and stability of catalysts for making hydrogen fuel from water.

Illustration showing a book with layers of atoms on its pages
News Feature

They discovered the messy environment of a chemical reaction can actually change the shape of a catalytic nanoparticle in a way that makes it...

Illustration of catalyst nanoparticle and car with exhaust emissions
Press Release

Replacing today’s expensive catalysts could bring down the cost of producing the gas for fuel, fertilizer and clean energy storage.

Grad student McKenzie Hubert watches electrolyzer at work
News Feature

SLAC/Stanford scientists and their colleagues find a new way to efficiently convert CO2 into the building block for sustainable liquid fuels.

Graves-Bajdich-Machalo