Extending the Lifespan of Electrocatalysts

21-Nov-2025 - A research team has discovered how to keep a cobalt-based oxide electrocatalyst active and stable. The element chromium plays a crucial role in this process. Although chromium itself is not an active element, its continuous dissolution enables a reversible surface transformation that keeps the ...

CO₂ as a raw material: new process makes climate gas usable for the chemical industry

Producing industrially relevant chemicals in a resource-efficient way

15-Oct-2025 - Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT), Ruhr University Bochum and Evonik Oxeno have developed a novel catalyst system that enables the use of the climate gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a raw material for the chemical industry. This breakthrough allows for the more sustainable ...

Producing Desired Epoxides from Pollutants

A new selective biocatalyst

10-Jul-2025 - New biocatalysts can produce useful epoxides from harmful styrene, and do this so selectively that only the desired compounds are formed and not their undesirable counterparts. This result was achieved by a group of doctoral students from the MiCon research training group (“Microbial Substrate ...

Small but Mighty: Miniaturized Hydrogen Production

“We asked the biologically somewhat crazy question of whether we can’t just find a shortcut and let ferredoxin produce hydrogen”

19-Jun-2025 - Researchers have created a miniature biocatalyst for hydrogen production. It works efficiently with electrons from photosynthesis. Natural hydrogen-producing enzymes are large and extremely sensitive to oxygen. This makes it difficult to use them for the applied production of green hydrogen. ...

Heat- and Oxygen-Stable Biocatalyst for Hydrogen Production

Newly detected [FeFe]-hydrogenase from a thermophilic bacterium is not degraded by oxygen

15-May-2025 - In the absence of air, microorganisms produce hydrogen using an enzyme called [FeFe]-hydrogenase, one of the most efficient hydrogen-producing biocatalysts known and a promising tool for green hydrogen energy. However, these enzymes are rapidly destroyed when exposed to air, which has so far ...

Inorganic and biocatalysts work together to reduce CO2

In a hybrid cascade, climate-damaging CO2 is turned back into valuable methanol

15-Jan-2025 - In order to recover valuable substances from CO2, it must be reduced in many individual steps. If electrocatalysis is used for this, many potentially different potential molecules are formed, which cannot necessarily be used. Biocatalysts, on the other hand, are selective and only produce one ...

How catalysts secretly lose their stability

Covalent organic framework compounds are more active as catalysts than one would expect

28-Nov-2024 - Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are less stable as catalysts than previously thought but remain highly active. COFs are promising designer catalysts, for example for the sustainable production of chemicals and fuels. Their properties can be adjusted very specifically to catalyze a desired ...

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 ...

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 ...

Producing Hydrogen and Fertilizer at The Same Time

This new concept could allow the needs of previously separate industries to be combined

17-Jul-2024 - A research team from the University Alliance Ruhr, Germany, has found a catalyst that can be used to convert ammonia into the energy carrier hydrogen and the fertilizer precursor nitrite. The production of hydrogen and the production of fertilizer have so far been separate chemical processes. ...