Designing Transition Metal Oxide Catlysts: From Cluster Science to Industrial Applications

在化学系实验物理化学项目GOALI倡议的支持下，宾夕法尼亚州立大学的A·韦尔福德·卡斯特尔曼与杜邦中央研究和开发公司的大卫·索恩将使用串联质谱仪研究快速流动反应堆中过渡金属氧化物(钛、锆、Nb)簇的结构和动力学。这些化合物作为催化剂的有效性将通过检查它们对几个新的气相反应的影响来确定，例如氧原子转移到丙酮形成乙酸甲酯。催化剂是一种改变化学反应的材料，例如增加化学反应的速度或产生不同的最终产品，而最终保持材料本身的化学不变。这项学术-工业联合研究项目的目的是确定各种过渡金属氧化物化合物作为各种碳氢化合物中C-C和C-H键化学反应的选择性催化剂的潜力。在固态化学和多相催化方面有经验的杜邦科学家将能够合成在宾夕法尼亚州立大学的气相实验中被确定为在催化这些反应方面特别活跃的材料。

In this grant supported under the GOALI initiative in the Experimental Physical Chemistry program of the Chemistry division, A. Welford Castleman at Pennsylvania State University, in conjunction with David Thorn of DuPont Central Research and Development, will study the structure and kinetics of clusters of transition metal oxides (Ti, Zr, Nb) in fast flow reactors using tandem mass spectrometers. The effectiveness of these compounds as catalysts will be determined by examining their effect on several novel gas-phase reactions, such as the transfer of oxygen atoms to acetone to form methyl acetate. A catalyst is a material which modifies a chemical reaction, such as increasing its rate or causing different end products to be produced, while leaving the material itself chemically unaltered at the end. The impetus behind this joint academic-industrial research project is to determine the potential of various transition metal oxide compounds as selective catalysts for chemical reactions involving the C-C and C-H bonds in various hydrocarbon compounds. DuPont scientists with experience in solid state chemistry and heterogeneous catalysis will be able to synthesize materials which were identified in Pennsylvania State's gas-phase experiments as being particularly active in catalyzing these reactions.