How catalysts remove dangerous nitrogen oxides

”If we know exactly where the reaction takes place, the production of catalysts can be controlled accordingly”

11-Oct-2024 - Catalysts belonging to the zeolite family help to remove toxic nitrogen oxides from industrial emissions. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have now discovered that their complex nano porous structure is crucial. Specifically, individual iron atoms sitting in certain neighbouring ...

Evidence stacks up for poisonous books containing toxic dyes

21-Aug-2024 - If you come across brightly colored, cloth-bound books from the Victorian era, you might want to handle them gently, or even steer clear altogether. Some of their attractive hues come from dyes that could pose a health risk to readers, collectors or librarians. The latest research on these ...

Molecular orbitals determine stability

The results could also help industry to optimise the stability of coordination polymers

14-Feb-2024 - Carboxylic acid dianions (fumarate, maleate and succinate) play a role in coordination chemistry and to some extent also in the biochemistry of body cells. An HZB team at BESSY II has now analysed their electronic structures using RIXS in combination with DFT simulations. The results provide ...

Electron bubbles modelled from X-ray laser data

An international team of scientists uncovers a groundbreaking model for the effects of radiation in water systems

06-Feb-2024 - What happens when radiation hits water? This is a question that has an impact every time you get an X-ray at the doctor’s office, given you are mostly made of water. A team of theoretical physicists at DESY has worked on data taken by colleagues from Argonne National Laboratory in the US at the ...

Bane and boon of oxygen mediating the performance of nickel catalysts in dry reforming of methane

Fundamental insights into the processes occurring at the catalyst surface

22-Jan-2024 - Catalysis is one of the key technologies in the chemical industry and has a wide-reaching impact on various aspects of our daily lives, including plastics manufacturing, drug synthesis, and production of both fertilizers and fuels. It is estimated that over 90% of chemical products are nowadays ...

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 ...

Researchers from Poland, France and Italy are honored for their work in cell biology, biomineralization and photonics

WITec Paper Award 2023 Recognizes Outstanding Publications

31-Jul-2023 - The WITec Paper Awards 2023 have been presented to scientists from Poland, France and Italy for their work in cell biology, biomineralization and the development of photonic devices, respectively. The competition recognizes three scientific publications per year that contain results acquired with ...

Different X-ray techniques combined

Sophisticated mix of methods offers improved structure analysis

09-Feb-2023 - Sometimes scientists have to accept that a method they have used for years fails under certain conditions. Such a failure calls for a careful analysis of the shortcomings and their subsequent elimination. An international team from the University of Regensburg, the University of Durham and the ...

Green hydrogen: faster progress with modern X-ray sources

11-Oct-2022 - In order to produce green hydrogen, water can be split up via electrocatalysis, powered by renewable sources such as sun or wind. A review article in the journal Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed. shows how modern X-ray sources such as BESSY II can advance the development of suitable electrocatalysts. In ...

Calculating the "fingerprints" of molecules with artificial intelligence

16-Jun-2022 - With conventional methods, it is extremely time-consuming to calculate the spectral fingerprint of larger molecules. But this is a prerequisite for correctly interpreting experimentally obtained data. Now, a team at HZB has achieved very good results in significantly less time using self-learning ...