Watching a Bimetallic Catalytic Surface in Action

Such insight on working catalysts is only possible to obtain using state-of-the-art experimental techniques under reaction conditions

01-Sep-2023 - A team of researchers from the Department of Interface Science at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society addressed the question: what happens to a Ga-promoted Cu surface under reaction conditions required for the synthesis of methanol? They found complex structural transformations of ...

Microscopic Transformations of Electrocatalyst Surfaces

Researchers reveal the disordering of copper surfaces during catalysis

24-Aug-2023 - Developing technologies that can convert CO2 into synthetic fuels and base chemicals is of key importance for reaching the climate goals. The electrochemical reduction of CO2 at copper electrodes allows to do this directly with electric power from renewable sources which could be used for the ...

Next generation solar fuels: How a record-breaking copper catalyst converts CO₂ into liquid fuels

Researchers have made real-time movies of copper nanoparticles as they evolve to convert carbon dioxide and water into renewable fuels and chemicals

21-Feb-2023 - Since the 1970s, scientists have known that copper has a special ability to transform carbon dioxide into valuable chemicals and fuels. But for many years, scientists have struggled to understand how this common metal works as an electrocatalyst, a mechanism that uses energy from electrons to ...

Previously unseen processes reveal path to better rechargeable battery performance

A new electron microscopy technique allows to collect images of the inner workings of batteries

14-Nov-2022 - To design better rechargeable ion batteries, engineers and chemists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign collaborated to combine a powerful new electron microscopy technique and data mining to visually pinpoint areas of chemical and physical alteration within ion batteries. A study ...

Tip tricks control reactions in a single molecule

Pulses from an atom-sharp tip enable researchers to break and form chemical bonds at will

31-Aug-2022 - Chemical reactions often produce messy mixtures of different products. Hence, chemists spend a lot of time coaxing their reactions to be more selective to make particular target molecules. Now, an international team of researchers has achieved that kind of selectivity by delivering voltage pulses ...

New Insights into the Interaction of Topological Insulators

26-Aug-2022 - Tungsten di-telluride (WTe2) has recently proven to be a promising material for the realization of topological states. These are regarded as the key to novel "spintronic" devices and quantum computers of the future due to their unique electronic properties. Physicists at Forschungszentrum Jülich ...

Golden wedding for molecules

Opportunities for a "new" chemistry

20-Apr-2022 - Chemical syntheses in liquids and gases take place in three-dimensional space. Random collisions between molecules have to result in something new in an extremely short time. But there is another way: on a gold surface under ultrahigh vacuum conditions, molecules lying still next to each other ...

The platinum riddle

How a chemical reaction takes place that, at first glance, should not be possible at the temperatures observed

05-Apr-2022 - What happens when a cat climbs onto a sunflower? The sunflower is unstable, will quickly bend, and the cat will fall to the ground. However, if the cat only needs a quick boost to catch a bird from there, then the sunflower can act as a "metastable intermediate step". This is essentially the ...

Multimodal imaging shows strain can drive chemistry in a photovoltaic material

27-Sep-2018 - A unique combination of imaging tools and atomic-level simulations has allowed a team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to solve a longstanding debate about the properties of a promising material that can harvest energy from light. The researchers used multimodal ...

Single molecule control for a millionth of a billionth of a second

11-Sep-2018 - Physicists at the University of Bath have discovered how to manipulate and control individual molecules for a millionth of a billionth of a second, after being intrigued by some seemingly odd results. Their new technique is the most sensitive way of controlling a chemical reaction on some of the ...