This award supports cooperative research in heterogeneous catalysis to be conducted by Prof. Eduardo E. Wolf of the University of Notre Dame and Mr. Paulo Araya of the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Chile. The work will be mainly experimental studies using infrared techniques developed at Notre Dame to verify theoretical work now in progress. Heterogeneous catalysts are used to accelerate chemical reactions. Studying these reactions can be crucially important to the petroleum and chemical industries. Infrared spectroscopy has shown that the catalysts' microstructure is important in determining the dynamic response of the catalyst to changes in operating conditions. The theoretical models of catalytic surfaces have been developed by Mr. Araya at Notre Dame in collaboration with Prof. Wolf. Now the experimental work to verify them will be carried out by extending Mr. Araya's stay. This work will be part of his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Chile and will form the basis of beginning a research group in this area in Chile which will develop and continue the collaboration between the two countries. In this way this support will help fulfill the goals of the Science in Developing Countries program.
