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Welcome to the Hicks Group Website! We are primarily focused in the area of heterogeneous catalysis. We seek to understand how the properties and structures of catalysts affect activity and selectivity for specific reactions. We couple our experimental results with detailed characterization of the catalysts to develop relationships between the catalyst structure and the resulting catalytic activity. We also study catalyst stability at reaction conditions, as fundamental understanding of stability is required for advanced catalyst development and for process commercialization. Our research group can be categorized into three primary Research Directions.
Research Direction 1: Plasma-Stimulated Catalysis. We focus our efforts on determining how nonthermal plasma and catalysts can be integrated to activate otherwise stable molecules (e.g., N2, CH4, CO2) and facilitate their transformations to desired products.
Research Direction 2: Catalyst Discovery for Alkane/Alkene Transformations. The Hicks group seeks to discovery new, selective catalysts based on earth-abundant metals to more effectively use domestic shale gas resources. These catalysts allow natural gas resources to be converted to liquid fuels so that they can be transported more easily and utilized in existing devices such as vehicle engines. Our efforts here center on new alkane dehydrogenation and olefin oligomerization catalysts.
Research Direction 3: Lignocellulosic Biomass and CO2 Conversions. The Hicks group continues to discover new catalytic materials for biomass conversion and CO2 utilization. Of particular interest are selective catalysts with high deoxygenation selectivity (biomass conversions) or high methanol selectivity (CO2 conversion).
Latest News:
May 2025: Congratulations Alba for passing the candidacy exam!
April 2025: Congratulations to Dr. Clarke for the fantastic job defending his PhD dissertation titled: Advancing Catalytic Dehydrogenation and Coupling of Light Hydrocarbons Via Nonthermal Plasma!
March 2025: Great job Russell and Alba on your presentations at the ACS Spring 2025 Meeting!
March 2025: Dr. Otor's review paper on Sequential Dosing Strategies for Controlling Selectivity and Plasma-Phase Contributions in Plasma Catalysis is now available on Energy & Fuels!
March 2025: Congratulations to Dr. Rivera-Castro for successfully defending his PhD work on Plasma-Catalytic Pathways for C1 Activation and Conversion to Value-Added Fuels and Chemicals!
January 2025: Congrats to Alba for receiving the Eilers fellowship for energy related research!
December 2024: Russell and Isaac's paper investigating plasma-induced strong metal–support interactions (SMSI) has been published in Journal of the American Chemical Society!
December 2024: Our paper titled "Fundamental insights and emerging opportunities in plasma catalysis for light alkane conversion" from Russell and our collaborators is now available in Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry!
November 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Otor for successfully defending his PhD!
November 2024: Welcome to the group Chamu and Hannah!
August 2024: Congratulations to Dr. Poirier for defending her PhD thesis!
April 2024: Ni, Hope, and Gerardo's review paper on plasma catalysis for hydrogen production has been published in ACS Catalysis! Check it out!
April 2024: Deanna's work on N-containing products via nonthermal plasma has been published in Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering!
November 2023: Hope, Gerardo and Alba gave presentations on their projects and Deanna and Russell showcased their work in poster presentations at AIChE! Congratulations Deanna for winning "best poster award"!
October 2023: Gerardo and Alba's paper titled "Plasma-Catalyst Synergy in the One-Pot Nonthermal Plasma-Assisted Synthesis of Aromatics from Methane" is now available on Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research!
July 2023: Russell's paper titled "Self-Organization and Nitrogen Incorporation in Diamond-Like Carbon Microstructures Synthesized by Nonthermal Plasma" has been published The Journal of Physical Chemistry C!
May 2023: Congratulations to Dr. Cho for defending his PhD with flying colors!
May 2023: Congratulations to Isaac for defending his Master's thesis!
May 2023: Great job Deanna for receiving the CEST Research Fellowship!
May 2023: Jessica and Yoonrae's paper investigating the effect of Ni2P with Co Doping on the performance and stability during propane dehydrogenation is now available in Catalysis Letters!
We are proud members of a recently funded NSF ERC: NSF Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources (CISTAR).
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