Our researchers address some of the grandest challenges in catalysis science, including bio-inspired design, modeling and simulation, and cost-saving reaction pathways.

New principles of bio-inspired design and synthesis will accelerate the development of catalysts that have increased rates for target reactions. New approaches to modeling and simulation, characterization, and synthesis will allow precise control of multidimensional catalytic structures. And finding new reaction pathways will target abundant electrons to convert inexpensive substrates.

The Department of Energy (DOE) recognizes these challenges and on its behalf, PNNL manages them. The nation has a growing need for energy and pressing needs for secure and resilient fuels. These needs require new chemical transformations that are fast and selective, and new chemistries and materials for advanced energy storage.

Research Centers and Facilities

In the catalysis arena, PNNL has a strong foundation of discovery science. The Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis (CME), ending in 2024, is a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center established by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences. PNNL researchers and their nationwide partners, are driven to understand molecular electrocatalysts in fuels—fuels that will efficiently convert electrical energy into chemical bonds, or chemical energy into electrical energy. 

Researchers at PNNL use powerful tools for characterizing, understanding, modeling, and manipulating matter at scales ranging from the atomic to the macroscopic. For additional tools and opportunities, researchers collaborate with colleagues at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a DOE user facility located on the PNNL campus. EMSL houses unique, specialized, and powerful instruments to conduct modeling, simulation, and characterization research. For example, PNNL researchers conduct advanced microscopy studies to reveal the catalytic activity of gold nanoparticles—one of DOE’s basic research needs in synthesis sciences.

At the Institute for Integrated Catalysis (IIC), PNNL combines more than 120 in-house scientists and engineers with experts from universities, industry, and other national laboratories, universities, and industry. They collaboratively explore and develop the chemistry and technology of catalyzed processes that will enable a carbon-neutral future. IIC researchers are focused on adding hydrogen to carbon resources that have been improved—“functionalized”—by oxidation. The researchers search for ways to store electrical energy in hydrogen, carbon-hydrogen, or nitrogen-hydrogen bonds. They also manipulate carbon-carbon and carbon-heteroatom bonds, and look for ways to optimize exhaust catalysis.

Strategic Investments

Catalysis is also supported by major in-house investments. The laboratory objective on reinventing chemical catalysts and catalytic processes, for example, supports research to harness catalysis in order to create fuels from cheap, abundant domestic materials. PNNL researchers draw on the attributes of both natural and synthetic systems to develop catalysts that work at energy-saving low temperatures. They also tailor catalysts for safe and cost-effective applications that produce no unwanted byproducts.