Descripción del proyecto
En busca de dos medias naranjas
Los catalizadores son una especie de celestinas que emparejan dos o más moléculas a fin de acelerar la reacción entre ellas. Son fundamentales para incontables procesos de gran relevancia socioeconómica. No obstante, al igual que con la «química» humana, la celestina debe dar exactamente con los miembros ideales de la relación que deben variar en muy pocos aspectos. Algunas de estas celestinas son mejores que otras, algo que depende mucho de las estructuras y los centros activos. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos KIDS emplea alta tecnología de obtención de imágenes para observar la acción de los catalizadores, lo que aumenta en gran medida la capacidad para describir los mecanismos de reacción química específica del centro activo y la velocidad de catálisis de distintos catalizadores sólidos y reactivos líquidos o gaseosos.
Objetivo
This proposal implements slice imaging to measure catalytic rates for site-specific elementary reactions thus offering remarkable opportunities to advance our fundamental understanding of heterogeneous catalysis.
As evidence for global climate change continues to grow, catalysis has moved to the front line of the struggle to obtain new, sustainable technologies for the future. Catalysis and catalytic processes account, directly or indirectly, for 20-30 % of world Gross Domestic Product. Knowledge of elementary chemical reaction mechanisms in heterogeneous catalysis underlies our ability to construct comprehensive kinetic models for many such important chemical processes, in order to optimise them.
Our proposed strategy makes the formidable task of describing site-specific chemical reaction mechanisms and elementary rates in heterogeneous catalysis facile, while its necessity we justified (Nature 2018) on the prototypical CO oxidation reaction on Pt by demonstrating that 40 years of traditional experimentation led to false interpretation of the reaction mechanism.
The aim of this proposal is characterize the important factors that influence the kinetics of elementary reactions at surfaces, e.g. the chemical nature of the catalyst and the geometry of the active site (stereodynamics). We chose elementary reactions involving C, H, O, N, as these are important in many key industries, such as the methane reforming, syngas, fuel cells, Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and the Haber-Bosch process. Our strategy is that of a “bottoms up” approach to catalysis, i.e. building and understanding complex heterogeneous chemical catalysis, from the site-specific kinetics of the elementary building block reactions. Our measurements, will serve for benchmarking first principles calculations of reaction rates in surface chemistry. Our methodology measures the kinetics in the s regime with temperatures in the 200 to 1000 K range, i.e more relevant to industrial conditions.
Ámbito científico
- natural scienceschemical scienceselectrochemistryelectrolysis
- natural scienceschemical sciencescatalysis
- natural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsgeometry
- natural scienceschemical sciencesorganic chemistryaliphatic compounds
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitución de acogida
80539 Munchen
Alemania