A multi-institutional team has resolved a long-unanswered
question about how two of the world’s most common substances interact.
In a paper published recently in the journal Nature
Communications, Manos Mavrikakis, professor of chemical and biological
engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his collaborators
report fundamental discoveries about how water reacts with metal oxides. The
paper opens doors for greater understanding and control of chemical reactions
in fields ranging from catalysis to geochemistry and atmospheric chemistry.