Catalysis
Report: revenues from thin-film batteries to reach almost $900 million by 2016
June 20, 2011 12:15 pm | News | CommentsIndustry analyst firm NanoMarkets has just issued its latest report on the thin-film battery market, projecting that the value of products containing thin-film batteries will reach approximately $14 billion by 2016.
A new way to choose catalysts for oxygen reduction
June 13, 2011 10:10 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMIT researchers have found a new way to predict which materials will perform best as catalysts for oxygen reduction, a core process in metal air batteries and fuel cells, opening up the possibility of faster and more effective development of new high-efficiency, low-cost energy-storage technologies.
‘Artificial leaf’ moves closer to reality
June 9, 2011 7:16 am | News | CommentsIt doesn’t look like a leaf, but the photosynthesis imitator being developed by teams at MIT would do much the same thing. Right now, it consists of a glass container full of water, with a catalyst-equipped solar cell inside on a divider between two sections. When exposed to the sun, the electrified catalysts produce two streams of bubbles — hydrogen on one side, oxygen on the other. When recombined these two elements create electricity; MIT is still working on the hydrogen side.
Answering century-old questions about platinum's catalytic properties
June 6, 2011 9:03 am | News | CommentsResearchers now understand more about why platinum is so efficient at producing power in hydrogen fuel cells.
From niche to mass market: Lab refines the EV battery
May 20, 2011 6:37 am | by Julie Chao | News | CommentsThis economics of electric vehicles was highlighted this morning’s R&D Daily , and the major finding was that EV batteries need to get significantly cheaper (and better) before consumers will buy them in large numbers. That future might be up to researchers like the EV team at Berkeley Lab, which is trying to improve the lithium-ion battery.
Organic catalyst to enhance drug R & D
May 13, 2011 9:17 am | News | CommentsA new "organocatalyst" developed at Oregon State Univ. is now available for commercial use. Produced by an Albany, Ore., pharmaceutical company, it should make new drug development around the world less costly, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly.
New lithium-ion battery “top candidate” for electric cars
May 4, 2011 11:19 am | News | CommentsA team of scientists in Italy and South Korea have built a new type of lithium-ion based spinel cathode material that, when used in a battery with a tin-carbon anode, have been shown to supply high rate charge and discharge cycles and energy density on the order of 170 Wh/kg -1 . This performance indicates a suitable use in electric vehicles
Hydrogen fuel tech dispenses with platinum
May 2, 2011 7:09 am | News | CommentsResearchers in Denmark and at Stanford’s National Accelerator Lab have created a device to harvest the energy from part of the solar spectrum and have it to power the conversion of single hydrogen ions into hydrogen gas. They were able to do so without the use of expensive platinum catalysts, instead finding a way to use molybdenum sulfide in conjunction with a chemical solar cell.
NJIT professor develops a biologically-inspired catalyst
April 20, 2011 6:11 am | News | CommentsAssociate Professor Sergiu M. Gorun is leading a research team to develop a biologically-inspired catalyst, an active yet inert material. The work is based on organic catalytic framework made sturdy by the replacement of carbon-hydrogen bonds with a combination of aromatic and aliphatic carbon-fluorine bonds.
Researchers are one step closer to controlled engineering of nanocatalysts
April 20, 2011 5:54 am | News | CommentsA research team from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has proposed and demonstrated a new approach to producing nanocrystals with predictable shapes by utilizing surfactants, biomolecules that can bind selectively to certain facets of the crystals' exposed surfaces.
Ionic liquid batteries are under development at Naval Research Lab
April 19, 2011 6:08 am | News | CommentsScientists anticipate a move away from centuries of caustic, hazardous aqueous-based battery cells, and the future could include the latest invention from scientists at NRL. Their new battery operates on hydrogen sulphate, an ionic liquid that acts as an electrolyte and can mimic alkaline batteries with discharge voltages up to 1.8 V.
Scientists control methane combustion to get different products
April 15, 2011 5:45 am | News | CommentsScientists have discovered a method to control the gas-phase selective catalytic combustion of methane, so finely that if done at room temperature the reaction produces ethylene, while at lower temperatures it yields formaldehyde. The process involves using gold dimer cations as catalysts.
Tandem catalysis breakthrough could lead to artificial photosynthesis
April 13, 2011 7:49 am | by Lynn Yarris | News | CommentsNanocrystal and nano-catalyst design have become increasingly important as conventional metal catalysts have shown themselves to have too many limitations for next generation energy storage and conversion devices. Berkeley Lab’s latest crystal design multiply catalytic reaction sites significantly.
Team reports breakthrough in chemical catalyst research
March 24, 2011 5:14 am | News | CommentsA new catalytic chemical method for the synthesis of a large and important class of carbon-carbon double bonds has been developed by scientists from Boston College and MIT, the team reports in the journal Nature . The findings expand the versatility of a set of metal-based catalysts discovered only three years ago by the researchers.
Ames Lab researcher hunts for green catalysts
March 8, 2011 3:37 am | News | CommentsL. Keith Woo of Iowa State Univ. and the Ames Laboratory is looking for cleaner, greener, and cheaper catalysts. Woo and his research group are turning to biology for some ideas. And they're developing high-throughput approaches to quickly test a reaction using up to a hundred trillion different catalysts.
A new way to design metal nanoparticle catalysts
February 23, 2011 3:13 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Northwestern Univ.'s Institute for Catalysis in Energy Processing have discovered a new strategy for fabricating metal nanoparticles in catalysts that promises to enhance the selectivity and yield for a wide range of structure-sensitive catalytic reactions.
Paperweight for platinum
February 9, 2011 3:11 am | News | CommentsA new combination of nanoparticles and graphene results in a more durable catalytic material for fuel cells. The catalytic material is not only hardier but more chemically active as well. The researchers are confident the results will help improve fuel cell design.
A little disorder yields a very efficient photocatalyst
January 31, 2011 3:11 am | News | CommentsA little disorder goes a long way, especially when it comes to harnessing the sun’s energy. Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory jumbled the atomic structure of the surface layer of titanium dioxide nanocrystals, creating a catalyst that is both long lasting and more efficient than most materials in using the sun’s energy to extract hydrogen from water.
Scientists make hydrocarbon breakthrough using gold catalyst
January 17, 2011 4:22 am | News | CommentsResearchers from the Cardiff Univ. School of Chemistry are opening up a new way of using hydrocarbon feedstocks to make a range of valuable products.
Developing bio-based polymers that heal cracks
January 6, 2011 12:03 pm | News | CommentsMichael Kessler, an Iowa State Univ. associate professor of materials science and engineering and an associate of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory, has worked with polymers that repair themselves when they crack. And he's worked with polymers made from vegetable oils. Now he's working to combine the two technologies. Kessler is researching and developing biorenewable polymers capable of healing themselves as they degrade and crack.
