The new catalyst is able to process polymers widely used in things like plastic grocery bags, milk jugs, shampoo bottles, toys, and food containers

22-Oct-2020

While plastics recycling is not new science, current processes don't make it economically worthwhile-- waste plastics get "down-cycled" into lower grade, less useful material. It's a challenge that continues to be an obstacle in tackling a growing global pollution crisis in single use plastics. A ...

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Chemists Reveal the Business Secret of a Catalyst

16-Oct-2020

Chemists at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis in Rostock were able to observe the molecular functioning of the catalyst in a redox reaction and identify important intermediate steps. For this purpose, they coupled, for the first time worldwide, four highly modern measuring methods that work in ...

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Direct coupling of aryl halides and alkyllithium compounds by palladium catalysis

14-Oct-2020

Palladium catalysts help synthesize key chemicals for many industries. However, direct reaction of two basic reagents, aryl halides and alkyllithium compounds, remains a challenge. Now, a team of scientists have found that a catalyst containing YPhos-type ligands can mediate this reaction even at ...

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Catalyst reduces the time of alkylation reactions from several hours to just 10 minutes

08-Oct-2020

Alkylation reactions are used in the petrochemical industry to obtain high-octane number components for gasolines. A chemist from RUDN University found a way to speed this process up to 24 times. To do so, he developed a catalyst based on silica and niobium. The results of his work were published ...

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Chemistry experiments show potential to power fuel cells

07-Oct-2020

"Eat your spinach," is a common refrain from many people's childhoods. Spinach, the hearty, green vegetable chock full of nutrients, doesn't just provide energy in humans. It also has potential to help power fuel cells, according to a new paper by researchers in AU's Department of Chemistry. ...

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Combining solar-harvesting materials with carbon-dioxide–consuming microbes could be an efficient way to generate clean fuels

07-Oct-2020

Semiconductive photocatalysts that efficiently absorb solar energy could help reduce the energy required to drive a bioelectrochemical process that converts CO2 emissions into valuable chemicals, KAUST researchers have shown. Recycling CO2 could simultaneously reduce carbon emissions into the ...

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Industrial Relevance Proven

06-Oct-2020

In catalysts, more surface area usually equals more activity. And hardly anything offers more surface than structures made of nanoparticles. Scientists from the Center for Nanointegration (CENIDE) at the UDEhave shown that it makes sense in economic terms to produce catalytically highly active ...

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Metha-Cycle decouples wind power from electricity demand

05-Oct-2020

Chemists at the Leibniz Institute for Catalysis (LIKAT) in Rostock are able to produce hydrogen from methanol under mild conditions of less than one hundred degrees Celsius and ambient pressure, with the yield and purity required for fuel cells. To achieve this, they optimized a proprietary ...

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Catalysts are stable at 700 degrees Celsius and expected to stimulate the commercialization of next-gen reversible fuel cells

29-Sep-2020

Unlike secondary batteries that need to be recharged, fuel cells are a type of eco-friendly power generation systems that produce electricity directly from electrochemical reactions using hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant. There are various types of fuel cells, differing in operating ...

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Electrochemical reactions, which will play an important role in the future of energy supply, can now be explained in detail

25-Sep-2020

Electrochemistry is playing an increasingly important role: Whether it is fuel cells, electrolysis or chemical energy storage, chemical reactions controlled by electric current are used. The decisive factor in all these applications is that the reactions are as fast and efficient as possible. An ...

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