Overview:
Advanced catalyst synthesis, paired with detailed characterization and testing, is
a key component to catalyst research and development. Our team of inorganic
synthetic chemists, materials scientists and engineers, and chemical engineers offers
expertise in the development of novel catalytic materials and engineered catalysts
and supports. Our core capabilities range from tailoring the active site on the sub-Angstrom
scale to controlling catalyst morphology at the nanometer scale to fabricating engineered
catalyst particles at the micrometer-to-millimeter scale to designing hybrid enzyme-mimetic
materials, and span a wide-range of materials and synthetic techniques:
- Metal oxide nanoparticles through combustion techniques
- Engineered metal oxide particles through gelation methods and structured mesoporous
metal oxides through templating methods
- Metal carbide and nitride catalysts through solid-gas reactions, including synthesis
of supported nano-carbides and nano-nitrides
- Zeolite synthesis with subsequent metal ion-exchange
- Thermally and chemically robust Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF) with tunable pore sizes
and catalytically active centers comprised of earth abundant elements. These materials
can be infiltrated with nanoparticles and dopants to tailor reactivity.
- Solution-phase nanoparticle syntheses of metals, metal alloys, and metal phosphides
- Functionalization of oxide materials and ligand exchange for metal and semiconductor
nanomaterials
- Soft chemical routes for the production of nanostructured hybrid materials made up
of porous silicates, zeolites, perovskites, and other layered oxides that achieve
enzyme-like reactivity while retaining the durability of conventional heterogeneous
catalysts
- High-throughput hydrothermal synthesis of conventional zeolites, Lewis acidic zeolites,
and pillared zeolites
- Microwave hydrothermal/solvothermal synthesis via homogeneous nucleation and growth
of zeolite nanoparticles (nanocrystals) and heterogeneous nucleation and growth of
zeolite membranes on porous ceramic supports.
National Laboratories:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
National Laboratory of the Rockies
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories
