Innovative combination of methods at HZB leads to fundamental
insights in catalyst research
Developing materials with novel catalytic properties is one
of the most important tasks in energy research. It is especially important to
understand the dynamic processes involved in catalysis at the atomic scale, such
as the formation and breaking of chemical bonds as well as ligand exchange
mechanism. Scientists of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and collaborators have
now combined the spectroscopic method “RIXS” with so-called ab initio theory in
order to describe these processes in detail for a model organometallic catalyst
of great interest to catalysis research – the iron carbonyl complex. The team
publishes its results today in the prestigious scientific journal “Angewandte
Chemie International Edition”.