JASON OWENS

What are catalyst / heterogeneous catalysts, and why are they interesting?

What is the basis for my research?

The specifics of my research.

What are catalysts / heterogeneous catalysts, and why are they interesting?

Catalysts are materials that speed up a reaction without actually being used in the reaction.  A heterogeneous catalyst is a catalyst that is in a different phase than the reactants.  An example of this is a metal catalyst (solid phase) that catalyzes a gas reaction (gas phase), such as the catalytic converter in a car.  Some form of catalysis is involved in nearly every production process currently used in the chemical industry.  From plastics to metals to computer components, and even food preservers and enhancers, catalysis plays an important role in the production of each product.  Heterogeneous catalysts are especially important in the petrochemical industry and are gaining importance for the production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

What is the basis for my research?

Choosing a catalyst for a particular reaction is a very important step in the design of a process.  However, very little is known about what makes one catalyst work better than another.  So far, catalysts have been tested by a guess-and-check method, by which is catalyst is simply thrown into a reaction.  If it speeds up the reaction, it’s a good catalyst.  A process may then be designed around the use of this catalyst.  But what if someone throws a different catalyst in and it works better?  What we need is a better method to determine the best catalyst for a particular reaction, based on the reactants used and the products desired (or not desired).  The first step in being able to determine such information without guessing is to know exactly what goes on during certain reactions.  Nearly every reaction used in industrial experiments involves a mechanism by which the reaction takes place.  Instead of one chemical turning directly into another, it may pass through a series of intermediate species and change over several steps into the desired product.  Knowledge of these mechanisms would be a tremendous tool for choosing catalysts.  And this is precisely what much of the research on catalysis focuses on, including mine.

Engineers are beginning to learn more about mechanisms as equipment for monitoring reactions and identifying species improve.  Infrared spectroscopy has been a great tool in this identification process.  However, typical experiments using infrared spectroscopy involve the infrared beam traveling through a liquid solvent to reach the surface.  Signals picked up in this liquid create “noise” in the spectra and make it difficult to differentiate between signals from the liquid and signals from the surface of the catalyst.  Because of this, most research has been done ex situ, meaning that spectroscopy was done before and/or after, but not during the reaction.  Another technique has been testing for intermediate species in vacuum environments where noise is easily eliminated.  Such environments are impractical for use in industry.

The specifics of my research.