Charlotte Vogt from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, together with an international team of scientists, has found the answer. Vogt used advanced characterization methods, including particle accelerators and quick spectroscopy to discover that the reactions indeed only appear to be structure insensitive. In truth, what happens is that the catalyst nanoparticle undergoes rapid restructuring. It changes its shape, and displays not the expected 'flat surfaces,' but peaks and valleys, leaving only specific reactive sites exposed. The process is so fast, that without the novel technology, and smart experimental design, it could not have been observed. The study was a collaboration between the Technion, Utrecht University, Eindhoven University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, and the Paul Scherrer Institute. It was recently published in Nature Communications.Ĭatalysis plays such an important role in nearly every industry it is easy to see how understanding catalysts and improving them can have a significant impact. Vogt explains: 'I believe the key to a greener, more sustainable future lies in better catalysts. Imagine, for example, turning CO 2 into useful compounds. The truth is, such a process is theoretically possible, but it is not yet energy efficient.

Right now, it would create more pollution than it would save. If, however we could lower the amount of energy required, or if we would be able to tune the catalyst to make specific products, if we could find catalysts that would make these things easier, suddenly it would become feasible. Remember, acid rain used to be a problem we talked about even two decades ago and now we no longer do.

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