Our project

TrackAct - Tracking the Active Site in Heterogeneous Catalysis for Emission Control

More than 95% of all chemical products have seen a catalyst during their production, hence, catalysis plays a tremendeous role, presently being a 3 trillion $ / year market of chemical industry. Heterogeneous catalysis is a substantial part of it, and the great importance of emission control for environmental and human health is obvious.

Despite this importance, still very little is understood about the mechanisms on a truly atomic scale which is necessary for better control of function on all length scales up to the macroscopic. Consequently, catalyst design has been more empirical than knowledge-driven up to now. More than 60% of the noble metals produced worldwide are used in catalysis. As noble metals are finite resources, there is an urgent need to reduce their content in catalysts to the effective minimum, the so-called active site. Structural changes under process conditions and their pronounced heterogeneity often pose a great challenge for knowledge-based design. New perspectives are evolving, e.g. in the preparation of defined metal clusters/particles, their characterization, and theoretical modeling, allowing to track and fundamentally understand the active sites in catalytic systems. This is the starting point of this interdisciplinary Collaborative Research Centre, where we aim at a holistic understanding by linking the different length scales and catalyst complexity levels. Our scale-bridging approach connects three areas: (A) size-selected clusters and defined nanoparticles, (B) porous catalysts with noble metal particles of defined size on support oxides with oriented surfaces and (C) hierarchically structured catalysts at the reactor level.

Project Area A

Project Area B

Project Area C

The goal of TrackAct is to identify and track the nature of the active site, to design and manipulate them from bottom-up across the various length scales, and - on a long-term vision - predict and actively control them during operation.

TrackAct officially  started on January 1st 2021, press release from DFG and KIT.

Auf der Jagd nach dem aktiven Zentrum - Video

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Auf der Jagd nach dem aktiven Zentrum - Video

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Katalyseforschung auf drei Skalenebenen - Video

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Katalyseforschung auf drei Skalenebenen - Video

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News

Here you can find the most recent news.

Image of Asadli standing in front of his poster
Poster Prize for Asad Asadli

Asad Asadli won a Poster Prize at the 3rd International Conference on Unconventional Catalysis, Reactors and Applications (UCRA 2024) in Warshaw, Poland. He presented joint initial work from our Associated Project Wolf Research Centre 1441 TrackAct with our Mercator Fellow Prof. Dr. Silvia Gross (University of Padova) as well as Dr. Alexis Bordet’s group (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, Mülheim a.d.R).

Image of Prof. Dr. Barbara A. J. Lechner
Prof. Dr. Barbara A. J. Lechner (TU München) wins Ernst Haage Prize for Chemistry 2024

Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Barbara A. J. Lechner (TU München) on winning the Ernst Haage Prize for Chemistry 2024. The prize is awarded annually to young scientists who have made an exceptional achievement in the field of chemistry. Registration for the ceremony is possible via the link below.

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Group photo of FuturEMission participants
FuturEMission conference in Karlsruhe

Huge thanks to all participants, presenters and speakers for their insightful contributions to our 3 day conference on the Future of Emission Control FuturEMission. Together, we delved into crucial aspects of the future of emission control. Looking forward to the next gathering!

Graphical abstract of publication "Temperature-dependent frequency control of TWC operation for efficient CH4 and NOx abatement of stoichiometric natural gas engines"
New Publication in C05

Congratulations to Project C5 on their new study on Temperature-dependent frequency control of TWC operation for efficient CH4 and NOx abatement of stoichiometric natural gas engines. Check out the new publication in ScienceDirect.

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Pt Cluster with Hydrogen2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH https://doi.org/10.1002/cphc.202400649
New Publication in A04, A01 and A02

In their study, our colleagues from project A04, A01 and A02 investigated the role of hydrogen atoms in the stability of cuboctahedral platinum cage structure of Pt12H24- clusters using a combination of trapped ion electron diffraction technique and density functional theory computations.

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Graphical abstract of publication "Continuous flow synthesis of atom-precise platinum clusters"
New Publication in B02 und C02

Our colleagues from B02 and C02 developed continuous flow synthesis platform enabling large-scale preparation of atom-defined clusters. If you want to know more about the potential of this approach, check out this exciting study!

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