Despite its environmental significance in terms of atmospheric pollution, the chemistry involved in the catalytic removal of nitrogen oxides at metal centres remains poorly understood at the molecular level. In recent years various spectroscopic tools have been developed, including by the participating groups here, which enable the fundamental physico-chemical interactions key to this chemistry to be probed. This is most cleanly done in the framework of isolated gas-phase complexes and clusters in which the relevant molecular interactions can be characterized precisely in the absence of complicating factors such as solvents or substrates.

Through a series of research visits for the group scientists involved, this project will to help establish a new interdisciplinary (chemistry / physics) collaboration between internationally leading research groups at Oxford University and Technische Universität Berlin. The two groups have distinct but complementary expertise but have never before worked together. By bringing multiple techniques together to study the same systems, unprecedented insight will be gained into a class of species with important implications in understanding chemical reactions fundamental to areas of chemistry such as heterogeneous catalysis and combustion chemistry.

Applicants: Prof. Stuart Mackenzie (University of Oxford), Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Otto Dopfer (Technische Universität)