ChemCatBio Will Hold January 29 Webinar on Programmable Catalysis for Chemical Energy Innovation
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office’s (BETO) Chemical Catalysis for Bioenergy Consortium (ChemCatBio) will hold a webinar on January 29, 2025, on programmable catalysis for chemical energy technology. ChemCatBio states that catalysis enables new frontiers in energy, such as converting biomass to high-value products and storing energy from abundant renewable energy. Challenges remain, however, when catalysts are slow, expensive, or produce too many side products. According to ChemCatBio, to address this, “researchers have created a new class of programmable catalytic materials that oscillate in electronic state at the natural frequencies of elementary reactions and catalytic cycles using external perturbation (i.e., a program).” Manipulating the charge of the active site for chemistry makes it possible to change dynamically the chemical energy landscape, leading to faster and more controllable reactions. ChemCatBio notes that surface electronic oscillations in devices such as a “catalytic condenser” can accelerate reactions at resonance conditions leading to thousand-fold rate enhancement, even beyond the Sabatier catalytic rate limit. During the webinar, Paul Dauenhauer, Ph.D., a University of Minnesota Distinguished McKnight University Professor and director of the Center for Programmable Energy Catalysis, a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, will introduce concepts of programmable chemistry and present experimental and computational results, the design of experimental catalytic devices, and the principles associated with this emerging field of chemistry. The webinar will end with a question and answer session.