This Americas Program award will fund a cooperative research project on environmental catalysis between Drs. Gustavo Larsen, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Daniel Resasco, University of Oklahoma, in collaboration with Drs. Carlos A. Querini and Jose M. Parera, Instituto de Investigaciones de Catalisis y Petroquimica (INCAPE), Universidad del Litoral, Argentina.
The research focuses on the development of new catalytic materials, and reduction of the emission of particulate carbons from diesel engines. These two areas of research play an important role in replacing polluting liquid acids currently used in alkylation processes, as well as in reducing the primary source of pollution from diesel engines. Novel experimental spectroscopy and kinetic techniques will be used to characterize the catalysts, with high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM) to be used as a complementary characterization tool. The research profits from the US researchers' expertise in the area of strong solid acid catalysis and catalytic reduction and the Argentineans' in the area of diesel soot oxidation.
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