RESEARCH AREAS
Development of alternative energy sources and environmentally benign chemical processes are essential for sustainable development of human society. Catalysis is at the core of developing clean energy sources, including advanced petrochemistry, biorefinery, and hydrogen energy technologies. Paralleling the efforts to develop new energy sources, catalysis also plays an important role in developing clean environment technologies. Green catalyst encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances and improve energy and resource efficiency.
In order to derive the required functions of catalysts in such processes, understanding the kinetics and mechanism of the catalytic reaction as well as the relationship between the molecular structure of certain catalysts and the reaction rate in different ways is essential. In combination with such fundamental knowledge, cutting-edge nanotechnologies and highthroughput screening of catalysts are used to design advanced catalysts.