Catalysis

Nanoporous polymers as base catalysts. Porous polymers contain basic heteroatoms like nitrogens which can act as catalysts. We found that base catalyzed reactions such as Strecker synthesis can be effectively promoted by box-COPs without the need for metals (Adv. Sustain. Syst. 2017, 1, 1700089).

Nanoporous polymers as nanoparticle caging hosts for gas conversions. We showed that common transition metal nanoparticle based composites of porous polymers can catalyze probe reactions such as CO oxidation as good as platinum (J. Mater. Chem. A 2015, 3, 15489). Acetylene can be selectively reduced to ethylene using metal doped-COP-6 networks (ACS Catal. 2016, 6, 2435-2442).

Dry reforming of methane by Nickel catalysts. Nickel and molybdenum nanoparticles were deposited on MgO support for coke resistant dry reforming of methane.

Nanowire catalysis. Well defined VO₂ nanowires on sapphire (α-Al2O3) substrates (Nano Lett., 2009, 9, 4138) were used as supports for noble metal catalysts to monitor nano-sized changes of the structures during gas catalysis with in-situ grazing incidence X-Ray scattering (GISAXS) technique.