Revolutionary Catalysis Discovery Promises Huge Energy Efficiency Gains

Chemical engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a model that explains how catalytic reactions work at the atomic level, potentially leading to more efficient catalysts, optimized industrial processes, and significant energy savings. Catalysis plays a crucial role in producing 90% of the products we use daily, and just three catalytic reactions use close to 10% of the world's energy. The researchers used powerful modeling techniques to simulate catalytic reactions at the atomic scale and found that the energy provided for many catalytic processes to take place is enough to break bonds and allow single metal atoms to pop loose and start traveling on the surface of the catalyst, forming small metal clusters that serve as sites for chemical reactions to take place much easier than the original rigid surface of the catalyst.