Carbon recycling instead of plastic trash

Iron electrocatalysis breaks down polystyrene and delivers green hydrogen

14-Nov-2024 - Plastics are inescapable in our daily lives. The vast amounts of plastic garbage heaped in landfills and in the environment, however, are as problematic as the plastics are useful. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a German research team has now introduced a new method for recycling polystyrene ...

Mechanism of Cobalt-Manganese Catalysts Deciphered

Combination of different methods was the key to success

22-Oct-2024 - The energy carrier hydrogen can be obtained from water by electrolysis. This works particularly well with Cobalt spinel electrocatalysts containing manganese. However, it was unclear why. Conventional catalysts for hydrogen production via water electrolysis usually contain precious metals and are ...

Black Magic for Greener Chemistry

Markus Antonietti receives Arkema Prize from the French Académie des Sciences

21-Oct-2024 - The prestigious 25,000-euro prize recognizes Prof. Markus Antonietti's groundbreaking research in carbon catalysis. He is developing materials with tailored properties for more sustainable chemical synthesis: carbon materials are abundant in nature, consume less energy than metal catalysts, and ...

Old becomes new - how new chemical products are made from used frying oil

Selective one-pot reaction

18-Oct-2024 - Every year, 119 million tons of used vegetable oil are produced worldwide, mainly from commercial kitchens and restaurants. Only a small proportion of this is reused, for example in the production of fuels such as biodiesel. At the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock (LIKAT), PhD student ...

Cobalt-copper tandem successfully converts carbon dioxide to ethanol

Sustainability in the focus of chemical research

14-Oct-2024 - The continuing release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a major contributor to global warming and climate change with increased extreme weather events. Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now presented a method for effectively converting carbon dioxide into ...

New Insights into Ammonia Decomposition

How to make hydrogen transportable

10-Oct-2024 - Using ammonia is regarded as a promising method of transporting hydrogen. However, an efficient process is also needed to convert it back into hydrogen and nitrogen. An international research team has gained new insights into the mode of operation of an iron catalyst that can be used to split ...

Innovative catalyst produces methane using electricity

A study opens up new ways to produce important chemical compounds

08-Oct-2024 - Researchers at the University of Bonn and University of Montreal have developed a new type of catalyst and used it in their study to produce methane out of carbon dioxide and water in a highly efficient way using electricity. Methane can be used, for example, to heat apartments or as a starting ...

Synthesizing fine chemicals: Technological Advance in Production of Pharmaceuticals

04-Oct-2024 - Production of fine chemicals such as those used in pharmaceuticals is typically complex and laborious. An interdisciplinary team of Fraunhofer researchers worked together across different projects to devise a method modeled on a cascade, in which multiple successive stages of synthesis proceed ...

“Tamed” Molecules for More Sustainable Catalysts

Successful synthesis of a spectacular gallium compound in the laboratory

27-Sep-2024 - Catalysts play an important role in the manufacture of many products that we encounter in everyday life - for example in cars for exhaust gas purification or in the chemical industry in the production of fertilizers. Catalysts ensure that these reactions take place with low energy consumption and ...

When ions go hiking: New Insights into Solvation Kinetics at Electrocatalyst Surfaces

Crucial for the development of more efficient batteries and electrolyzers, or to fight corrosion

25-Sep-2024 - The Interface Science Department of the Fritz- Haber Institute has made additional strides toward "Exploring Dynamic Solvation Kinetics at Electrocatalyst Surfaces," as detailed in their article in the journal Nature Communications. Among other reactions, the researcher focused on the ion ...