University of North Texas 
UNT Regents Professors Drs. Thomas Cundari and Francis D’Souza from the Department of Chemistry are being supported by a $351,000 grant from the Robert A. Welch Foundation.
Laying the foundation for future environmental technologies, two chemists at the University of North Texas are developing new catalysts that could help convert a water pollutant into something useful.
UNT Regents Professors Drs. Thomas Cundari and Francis D’Souza from the Department of Chemistry are being supported by a $351,000 grant from the Robert A. Welch Foundation. The foundation supports fundamental chemical research in Texas.
“We’re excited for this grant because it helps build that groundwork while also being a benefit to our students,” Dr. Cundari said.
The team is researching catalysts that could help convert nitrate in water into useful
chemical products, most notably ammonia. Nitrate is a pollutant commonly found in
groundwater and surface water, while ammonia can be a useful compound that is typically
used in fertilizer. Catalysts speed up chemical reactions without being used up, allowing
them to be reused multiple times.
“While we hope to develop the technology to do this, we’re more focused on the fundamental science for this conversion,” said Dr. Cundari. “We’re trying different single-site, metal-macrocycle-based catalysts on various carbon supports with the hope that they’ll be renewable and more environmentally friendly.”
Dr. Cundari’s team will use computer models to test different catalyst designs and find the most effective and sustainable ones.
“There are two things you want from modeling: understanding existing systems, and then using those insights to predict new and improved catalysts,” he said.
Once the computations are complete, the most promising catalyst designs will be sent to Dr. D’Souza’s group for synthesis and experimental testing. The results from those experiments will then be sent back to Cundari’s team, creating a continuous loop between computation and laboratory work.
The two are using this grant to build on a previous project funded by the Welch Foundation. In that work, they studied catalysts that could convert atmospheric nitrogen rather than nitrate in water.
“When you have a good catalyst, you can ask questions with the modeling such as ‘If this works for nitrogen, what else might it work for?’ That led us in this direction,” Dr. Cundari said.
About half a dozen students are involved in the project, including doctoral and undergraduate students, as well as one student from the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science.
“Our students get the chance to work on important research while also developing their modeling and experimental skills,” said Dr. Cundari. “It gives them broader training and makes them more competitive in the job market.”
Beyond training future scientists, Dr. Cundari hopes the project will inspire new lines of research.
“We’re hoping we can influence how people think about these chemical reactions and how they can use them in related studies,” he said. “Maybe someone will use this approach to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That would be really valuable.”
Via UNT News