Laboratory for Science and Applications of Catalysis

The Iglesia group addresses the design, synthesis, and structural and functional characterization of inorganic solids useful as catalysts for reactions relevant to the production, conversion and use of energy carriers, the sustainable synthesis of petrochemicals, and the minimization of environmental impacts of energy conversion and use. Current research includes designing catalysts for converting C1 and oxygenate molecules to fuels and large-volume chemicals as bridges to carbon-free energy platforms, the formation mechanism and reactivity consequences of oxygen species in oxidation and deoxygenation turnovers, the design, synthesis, and catalytic use of active sites at specific locations within confined environments to enforce molecular traffic constraints and preferential stabilization of specific transition states, and the mechanistic consequences of dense phases, whether intrapore liquids or dense surface adlayers, in solvating precursors and transition states.

This research is enabled by novel synthetic protocols to prepare active nanostructures and isolated single-site catalysts within porous solids and by techniques for assessing their location, structure, and atomic connectivity, in most instances during catalytic reactions. It also exploits steady-state and transient kinetic methods and isotopically-labeled molecules to elucidate the mechanism of reactions on surfaces, at the level of primary and secondary reaction paths, but also, and most relevantly, in terms of the elementary processes that mediate catalytic sequences. The general approach involves systematic experimental inquiries into structure and function benchmarked against rigorous analysis by density functional theory and higher-level theoretical treatments. 

LSAC Research Accomplishments (2014-2023, rev. 9/23)

This document provides a summary of the research accomplishments of members of the LSAC group in the period between 2014 and 2023. The contributions described herein are grouped together by the concepts (and conundrums) that motivated each body of work.