Changing the Game in Biomass Conversion
by Corinne Drennan

Bioenergy has been used since the first controlled fires, thought to be early in the Acheulean occupation, about 1 million years ago. Since then, we've learned how to transform inedibles into delicacies, generate electrons, harness microbial powerhouses, and even convert lignin and carbohydrates to hydrocarbons. How then does one make a "game-changing" technological advancement or shift a paradigm today, in the midst of these (and other) empirically driven successes? Read more.

Ending Molecular Road Rage

Wider lanes, better design could ease bumps in the road to biofuels

If you've ever worked in a big city, you know the highways with the too-narrow lanes or filled with potholes. These are the ones on the morning traffic report, where the highway's number is usually followed by words like "pileup," "crash," and "closed lanes." You'd avoid them if there were another route, but you need to get to work. In some ways, the same problem exists for molecules that must transit through the pores of zeolites on their path to becoming fuels. Zeolites are whitish-gray aluminosilicates, with a consistency similar to baking soda, that catalyze a host of reactions in petroleum, pharmaceutical, and possibly biofuel production. Read more.

90 Seconds of Discovery:

Increasing Biofuel Catalyst Life

One of the gaps between processing bio-oil and petroleum on an efficient industrial scale is that the catalysts used are currently short lived and subject to plugging. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers have increased the catalyst life from days to months thus far, and hope to extend that to a year or more. Watch the video and learn more.

July 2014

Catalysis News & Research:

Jim De Yoreo elected Materials Research Society Fellow. De Yoreo was chosen for his pioneering research in the field of bio-inspired materials science and engineering and his distinguished leadership and service to the materials community. Read more.

Jud Virden, Kelly Sullivan elected to National Council for Chemical Research. Virden was elected to the council's governing board, and Sullivan was named the council's second vice chair. Read more.

Review covers lifetime of proton pushing. In a review in Inorganic Chemistry, Dan DuBois, former Deputy Director of the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, an Energy Frontier Research Center, shares three fundamental discoveries made to build catalysts that drive the storage of electrical energy inside chemical bonds. Read more.

Krypton reporter uncovers oxygen's antics. Long thought to be unresponsive to ultraviolet light, oxygen adatoms on a common catalyst's surface actually respond to light, according to scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Read more.

Revving up catalysts by building in proton-only offramp. Do protons speed through a catalyst, take the scenic route, or stop altogether? Scientists at the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis revised their nickel-based catalyst to quickly handle a fuel cell's tough challenge. Read more.

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