Successful symposium highlights advances in catalysis

The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering recently hosted its second catalysis symposium, to honor the late Robert and Marcy Haber Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos’ scientific legacy. During her prolific career, Flytzani-Stephanopoulos pioneered single-atom catalysis and earned recognition from top scientific organizations for her leadership in catalysis and energy sustainability. In its second year, the symposium welcomed prominent catalysis researchers to Tufts to discuss the latest developments in catalysis of all kinds. Students, faculty, and industry professionals at all career stages participated in a full day of lectures, a poster session, and networking.

Catalysis is the process by which a catalyst is added to a substance to speed up a chemical reaction. Designing more efficient catalysts can make catalysis less time-consuming and expensive. Catalysis research has a direct impact on the sustainability of energy and industrial processes such as natural gas conversion, fertilizer storage, and more.

Professor Yong Wang of Washington State University delivered the keynote address at the event. He explored a unique method of pretreating single-atom catalysts that could make the process more cost and resource efficient. Catalysts must be pretreated to remove residual materials and stabilize the catalyst. Wang demonstrated how some minor tweaks in hydrothermal conditions could lead to more effective single atom catalysts. The strategy could reduce reliance on critical materials such as platinum- group metals that are difficult to source but often necessary for catalysis. Wang is a Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering at Washington State University and Acting Director of the Institute for Integrated Catalysis at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Following the keynote, Professor Bin Wang, an incoming member of Tufts’ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, delivered remarks. His lecture explored the role of single-site catalysis in battery technologies. Taking inspiration from Flytzani-Stephanopoulos’ early work, he detailed his efforts to activate sulfur and lithium bonds to create lithium sulfur batteries. His initial predictions were derived from computational methods and later validated through experiments. Wang is currently the Conoco-DuPont Professor at the University of Oklahoma’s School of Sustainable Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering. Starting in January 2026, he will join the Tufts School of Engineering as the Robert and Marcy Haber Endowed Professor in Energy Sustainability, a position previously held by Flytzani-Stephanopoulos.

Professor Paul Dauenhauer of the University of Minnesota won this year’s Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos Award for Creativity in Catalysis. After receiving a plaque from the event organizers, Dauenhauer delivered a lecture titled, “Programmable Catalysis for Chemical Energy Technology.” In his talk, Dauenhauer introduced the concept of programmable catalysis, or electronic materials that can be programmed to shift between different natural frequencies of elementary reactions. In other words, a single catalytic device could act as multiple different catalysts by adjusting its setup over time. Although still in the experimental stage, this dynamic approach to catalysis could lead to faster and more controllable reactions. Dauenhauer is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota where he focuses on catalysis, separations, and reaction engineering.

Other key speakers at the event included John Wade Professor Charles Sykes of the Department of Chemistry. A longtime collaborator with the late Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, he kicked off the symposium with a talk on new single-atom alloy catalysts developed by his group at Tufts. Lamot du Pont Professor Heather Kulik from MIT also gave a talk on applying machine learning methods to catalysis.

The day wrapped up with a panel discussion about the future of heterogeneous catalysis featuring leaders in catalysis research from industry and academia. As researchers continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in catalysis, events like the Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos Symposium serve as an important opportunity to share their progress and make new connections.