Northwestern Home Page   Catalysis at Oxide Surfaces


The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances;
if there is any reaction, both are transformed
Carl Gustav Jung

The work we do targets producing more energy efficient, greener catalysts as part of one of the largest groups of scientists in the world working on this problem.

For more than a century, fossil resources in the form of petroleum, coal, and natural gas have been the main sources of fuels. As a consequence of the increasing cost and decreasing availability of petroleum, the importance of coal as an abundant effective source of energy for will grow. At the same time, renewable sources of energy, particularly biomass, will also increase in importance because they represent another domestic energy source, and they produce no net increase in CO2 emissions. Indeed the potential harm from climate change due to CO2 emissions is of such concern that developing economical and energy efficient processes for mitigating CO2 emissions would dramatically enhance the attraction of coal as an energy source. Catalysis, and particularly heterogeneous catalysis, has been a critical technology for the efficient, high yield conversion of energy resources into fuels for transportation, industrial production and electricity generation. The success of a transition to different energy sources, as measured by its impact on the US economy and quality of life, will depend directly on knowledge-based improvements in the efficiency of utilizing raw energy sources, and catalysis will play a critical role in this process.

We use a wide range of different techniques from growth of single crystals through solving the surface structures, examining how the materials behave as catalysis in practice to theoretical modelling of the surfaces. Our aim is to bridge what is called the "Materials Gap", connecting what is taking place on large, single crystal surfaces under controlled conditions with controlled nanoparticles of oxides used as catalysts.

Recent Publications

  1. Water-driven structural evolution of the polar MgO (111) surface: An integrated experimental and theoretical approach, J. Ciston, A. Suramanian, L. D. Marks, Physical Review B, 79, 085421 (2009)
  2. Time, temperature, and oxygen partial pressure-dependent surface reconstructions on SrTiO3 a systematic study of oxygen-rich conditions, A.N. Chiaramonti, C.H. Lanier, L.D. Marks, and P.C. Stair, Surface Science 602, 3018 (2008)
  3. Surface evolution of rutile TiO2 (100) in an oxidizing environment, Y.M. Wang, O. Warschkow, and L.D. Marks, Surface Science 601, 63 (2007)
  4. Activation of Au/TiO2 catalyst for CO oxidation, Yang JH, Henao JD, Raphulu MC, Wang YM, Caputo T, Groszek AJ, Kung MC, Scurrell MS, Miller JT, Kung HH, Journal of Physical Chemistry B 109 (20): 10319, (2005)