Nathaniel Eagan
Tufts University, MA·Chemistry
Catalysts speed up chemical reactions. Many industrial processes depend on metal surfaces that do this efficiently and selectively.
- Fields
Chemistry
Engineering
Materials Science
- Topics
heterogeneous catalysis
single-atom alloys
trimetallic catalysts
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Synthesize copper-based trimetallic single-atom alloy catalysts with two isolated dopant metals using controlled colloidal methods, and characterize their structures with a range of analytical techniques.
- Test the catalytic behavior of these materials for carbon–carbon coupling reactions in laboratory-scale reactors, and interpret the results with microkinetic modeling.
- Investigate how chemical intermediates spill over between distinct dopant atoms so that they cooperatively drive different steps of a catalytic cycle.
- Relate ultra-high vacuum single-crystal surface studies to reactor results to bridge the materials, pressure and temperature gaps between the two approaches.
More about the research
A promising design scatters single atoms of a reactive metal across the surface of a less reactive 'coinage' metal host such as copper; this design is called a single-atom alloy. Two-metal versions already run many reactions with unusual efficiency and selectivity. Harder reactions, such as carbon–carbon coupling, which joins carbon fragments into larger molecules for chemical synthesis, involve steps with very different requirements that one kind of isolated atom may not handle alone.
Why it matters
Carbon–carbon coupling reactions are central to making a wide range of chemicals. Design rules for trimetallic single-atom alloys could help chemists and chemical manufacturers develop more efficient and selective catalysts for these hard transformations. The methods for connecting surface science to real reactor conditions could also guide future catalyst development.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Matthew Montemore
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Engineering·Early-career
Screen alloy-host single-atom alloys with machine learning and density functional theory to find stable, active catalysts for oxidation and alkane conversion, then move top candidates to surface-science and nanoparticle tests.
David Flaherty
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Chemistry
Synthesize gold-rich alloy nanoparticles containing palladium, platinum or rhodium at diameters of about 1–2, 6 and 10 nm, and track how gas adsorption and reactions restructure them over extended periods.
Suljo Linic
University of Michigan, MI·Engineering
Synthesize plasmonic single atom alloy nanoparticles, silver or gold particles with isolated platinum, palladium, rhodium or ruthenium atoms at the surface, and characterize their geometry.
The school
Tufts University: 19 labs on PI Pages, $278M a year on research, 144 research doctorates a year.
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