Understanding novel force-responsive heterogeneous catalysts - Nikolay KOSINOV - BM05

Efficient catalytic materials are essential for closing the carbon cycle in the future circular economy, where new renewable feedstocks (carbon waste, CO2, biomass) will be used. To design such materials, we have a lot to learn from Nature, where bio-catalysts enzymes perform many reactions that are impossible for chemists to replicate. Enzymes operate by dynamically confining reactants, with high geometric and chemical precision. While we can mimic static confinement with existing nanoporous catalysts, we do not have in-situ control over the confinement geometry inside these generally rigid materials.In our research, we aim to develop the first heterogeneous catalysts with tunable confinement. The approach is based on ordered graphene-based materials – zeolite-templated carbons (ZTC). The unique property of these materials is that their pore size can be finely tuned within the sub-nm range by external mechanical force. This feature enables the precise modulation of the confinement