New insights into chemical reactions

Eighty percent of all products in the chemical industry are produced by catalysis. Catalysis is also indispensable in energy conversion and waste gas purification. It is therefore important that these processes take place as quickly and efficiently as possible as this preserves the environment, saves time and resources. Industry is thus always trying out new substances and arrangements that permit new and better catalytic processes. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI in Villigen, canton Aargau, and at the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) have now developed a method that greatly improves the accuracy of such experiments. This should speed up the search for optimal solutions.