News & Highlights
Recent publications, awards, press coverage, and lab updates. Pre-2025 stories are in the archive below.
Prof. Porosoff Appointed to EES Catalysis Early Career Board
Associate Professor Marc Porosoff was appointed to the Early Career Board of EES Catalysis (Royal Society of Chemistry), recognizing his research program integrating AI and novel energy transfer mechanisms for sustainable CO₂ conversion.
Read Announcement →Achieving Phase Control of Polymorphic Tungsten Carbide Catalysts
By maintaining particle sizes below 10 nm and using temperature-programmed carburization, the team selectively synthesized β-W₂C — establishing it as an active and stable RWGS catalyst. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
View Paper →Leveraging and Understanding Exotherms in Tandem Catalysts with In Situ Luminescence Thermometry
UCNP-based luminescence thermometry revealed 10–100°C discrepancies between bulk and surface temperatures in tandem catalytic systems. Selected as a HOT article and journal cover. Funded by NYSERDA Carbontech Development Initiative.
View Paper →Intrinsically Bifunctional Tungsten Carbide Enables Efficient PVC-Compatible Polyolefin Hydrocracking
Phase-controlled tungsten carbide drives polyolefin hydrocracking more than 10× more efficiently than conventional platinum — and resists deactivation by PVC contaminants. Funded by NSF.
View Paper →DOE Award: Precise Control of Tungsten Carbide in Joule Reactors via NLP
Three-year DOE award funds work combining NLP-guided catalyst discovery with pulsed Joule heating to synthesize and control tungsten carbide phases for the RWGS reaction.
View Award Abstract →NSF Award: Representing Catalysts with Natural Language for Accelerated Discovery
Prof. Porosoff received an NSF Award to develop and apply natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) for accelerated catalyst discovery. The project represents catalysts using the text of synthesis procedures and reaction conditions combined with Bayesian optimization, enabling discovery of earth-abundant, active catalysts without expensive structural characterization.
View NSF Award →Spring 2025 Porosoff Group Awards
Hasitha Perera — Kokes Award from NACS for NAM29 · Phyllis Ong — Department of Chemical Engineering 2025 ACS Award · Eva Ciuffetelli — inaugural Chemical Sustainability Scholar · Ruth Reynolds — Eisenberg Intern · Shane Michtavy — back-to-back Su Lecture Poster Award winner. Congratulations to all!
Dual Functional Materials: At the Interface of Catalysis and Separations
Perspective on integrated carbon capture and utilization (ICCU) via thermally driven dual functional materials. Identifies key priorities for DFM design, interfacial cooperativity, and data reporting standards. Selected as a journal cover.
View Paper →PodCAT Crossover: Darren Lipomi, A Catalyst for Change in Chemical Engineering
Prof. Porosoff collaborated with department chair Darren Lipomi on a special crossover episode discussing leadership, mentorship, and the future of chemical engineering education.
Read More →Scialog NES: Porosoff Part of Awarded Cross-Disciplinary Team
In the fourth and final year of Scialog: Negative Emissions Science, Prof. Porosoff was part of one of seven cross-disciplinary teams awarded funding to advance the underlying science of greenhouse gas capture, utilization, and sequestration. The project focused on modular production of aviation fuel from biogas via zoned Joule heating, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi and Yale.
Read Announcement →Reactive Separations of CO/CO₂ Mixtures over Ru-Co Single Atom Alloys
Demonstrating Ru-Co single atom alloys for reactive separations of CO/CO₂ mixtures, combining experimental characterization with DFT calculations.
View Paper →In the Media
Phyllis Ong won 1st place in Catalysis and Reaction Engineering (Division III); Adel Fadhul won 2nd place in Fuels, Petrochem and Energy (Division II) at the 2023 AIChE annual student conference in Orlando, Florida.
Danielle Getz was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Grant to attend the University of Copenhagen's Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis, where she conducted research on high-entropy alloy catalysts for renewable chemical production.
PhD candidate Jane Agwara was featured in the new Hajim School of Engineering promotional video highlighting CO₂ conversion research.
Congratulations to Mitch Juneau (PhD 2023) and Renjie Liu (PhD 2023) on completing their doctoral degrees, representing major milestones for the group's RWGS and CO₂ hydrogenation programs.
Prof. Porosoff was named a Scialog: Negative Emissions Science Fellow, co-sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and RCSA, joining early-career scientists pursuing collaborative, high-risk research in greenhouse gas removal.
Congratulations to Levi Sunday-Lefkowitz on winning the Donald M. Barnard Prize.
Danielle Getz, chemical engineering major and Grand Challenges Scholar, worked in the Porosoff lab on climate solutions and led STEM outreach through the Society of Women Engineers.
Seniors Danielle Getz and Quinn Yu received the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Award for outstanding service as TAs in Chemical Engineering courses during Fall 2022.
Students in CHE 150: Introduction to Sustainable Energy designed and built solar hot water heaters under a revamped curriculum supported by the $15,000 Sykes Engineering Award, adding new labs and team projects.
Over 30 Hajim School students, led by PhD candidate Jane Agwara and mentored by Prof. Porosoff, entered the XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition to develop a device that extracts CO₂ from the atmosphere and converts it into useful materials.
The group's K-Mo₂C paper in Energy & Environmental Science earned wide press coverage. The catalyst efficiently converts CO₂ to CO at industrial scale — a key step in the Navy's seawater-to-fuel program. WROC Channel 8 visited the lab to cover the story.
Eve Marealle and Aime Laurent Twizerimana (Xerox Engineering Research Fellows) worked on converting CO₂ to ethylene and propylene. Madeline Vonglis (Eisenberg Summer Intern) investigated molybdenum carbide catalysts for synthetic jet fuel.
University of Rochester feature on summer undergraduate research in the Porosoff lab, highlighting three students working on CO₂ conversion projects.
Congratulations to Zhiqiang Ma and Prof. Porosoff on the group's inaugural publication — the beginning of the group's record of 20+ peer-reviewed papers.
Prof. Porosoff received a $60,000 University Research Award to develop nano-sized RWGS catalysts — the foundation of the group's program converting CO₂ into plastics, chemicals, and fuels.