Category Archives: Uncategorized

Omar Farha has been named a 2025 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the highest professional distinction awarded exclusively to academic inventors.

NAI Fellowship recognizes individuals who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation through inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and social welfare.

Farha is among 169 newly elected fellows in the 2025 class, representing 127 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutions worldwide. Collectively, this year’s class holds more than 5,300 issued U.S. patents and includes recipients of the Nobel Prize, National Medals of Science and Technology and Innovation, and members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Congratulations, Omar, on this well-deserved honor!

Read more here.

On the same day that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for groundbreaking work on metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), the Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center (CD4DC) gathered for its 2025 All-Hands Meeting on October 8 at the University of Chicago’s David Rubenstein Forum. The timing was especially meaningful for the CD4DC community, as the center’s research is deeply connected to the field of MOFs, and several affiliated scientists have collaborated with the newly named Nobel laureate.

Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, CD4DC unites researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Stony Brook University, Ohio State University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This year’s meeting opened with reflections on the Nobel recognition and its connection to the center’s mission to design catalysts for modern energy processes. Throughout the day, Principal Investigators, Senior Scientists, and early-career researchers presented updates on collaborative projects and shared advances in catalytic systems for hydrogen production, carbon management, and chemical transformations.

Under the leadership of Professor Laura Gagliardi, CD4DC continues to strengthen collaboration between experimental and computational teams to accelerate discovery. The 2025 meeting underscored how collective scientific effort drives the innovation needed for the future of energy.

Aniruddha Seal, Matthew Hennefarth, Professors Laura Gagliardi and Andrew Ferguson, and Professor Michele Parrinello (Italian Institute of Technology, Genoa) and his group have developed a workflow to train machine-learned potentials beyond Kohn-Sham DFT. At its core is WASP – the Weighted Active Space Protocol — an algorithm that assigns consistent active spaces across diverse geometries, enabling multireference-quality machine learned potentials (MLP) and overcoming a long-standing barrier to incorporating multireference electronic structure in MLPs.

Discover more about this breakthrough and related research here.

Professor Anderson of the University of Chicago has been awarded the Harry Gray Award for Creative Work in Inorganic Chemistry by a Young Investigator by the American Chemical Society.

This honor recognizes his pioneering work in synthetic inorganic chemistry, where his team designs molecules with unconventional structures. His research, including a synthetic system that mimics natural enzymes, provides critical insights into chemical reactions and catalysis, with important implications for energy and materials science.

We celebrate Professor Anderson’s remarkable contributions to chemistry and his innovative approach to advancing the field!

Learn more about his work here.

CD4DC researchers have developed an innovative catalyst design that could significantly improve the safety and efficiency of hydrogen storage and transport. By incorporating metal–sulfur active sites into metal–organic frameworks, the team has enhanced the performance of Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers (LOHCs)—a promising technology that stores hydrogen in a stable, non-volatile liquid form. This advancement brings us closer to practical, safer hydrogen fuel solutions compatible with existing infrastructure.

Learn more about this exciting research and its potential impact here.

Congratulations to Professor Matthew Neurock of the University of Minnesota, who has been selected as the 2025 recipient of the Herman Pines Award in Catalysis, presented by the Catalysis Club of Chicago.

Professor Neurock is honored for his pioneering contributions to catalysis research, particularly in applying molecular-level theory to complex catalytic systems. The award will be presented at the Club’s Spring Symposium in May 2025.

For more details visit the Catalysis Club of Chicago website.

We are thrilled to recognize the outstanding contributions of our poster competition winners at the CD4DC 2024 All-Hands Meeting. From left to right, they are congratulated by Professors Laura Gagliardi and Jenny G. Vitillo:

Jan Hoffman (Stony Brook University)
Dana Sanchez (Stony Brook University)
Haomiao Xie (Northwestern University)
Huy Nguyen (University of Minnesota)
Hilal Daglar (University of Chicago)

Congratulations to all! Your work is driving the future of clean energy.

The Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center (CD4DC) held its annual All-Hands Meeting on September 24-25, 2024, at the David Rubenstein Forum of the University of Chicago. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the center brings together researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Argonne National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Minnesota, Stony Brook University, Ohio State University, and University of Illinois at Chicago. This year’s event focused on advancing catalyst design to accelerate decarbonization efforts and featured presentations from Principal Investigators, Senior Scientists, and Junior Investigators.

Building on last year’s meeting held in October 2023, the 2024 gathering provided a platform for sharing the latest research breakthroughs and brainstorming future strategies. Led by Professor Laura Gagliardi, the center’s work is key to developing clean energy technologies, with a strong emphasis on hydrogen as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Attendees also discussed the roadmap for future projects, reinforcing the CD4DC’s commitment to combating climate change through scientific innovation.

Renowned chemist Prof. Laura Gagliardi of the University of Chicago has been featured in Italy’s prominent newspapers, La Stampa and Il Messaggero, for her groundbreaking work on a high-tech sponge that absorbs water vapor from the air and generates water.  Originally developed with military applications in mind, the sponge has the potential for wider uses, including air pollution cleanup and providing water in arid environments like deserts.  The prototype developed by Gagliardi’s research group showcases innovative solutions to global challenges and is a testament to her visionary scientific leadership.

You can read the full articles here:

La Stampa
UChicago News
Il Messaggero (pictured below)

The Anderson, Gagliardi, and Wuttig groups, operating under the Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center (CD4DC), have led to significant progress in the development of sulfur-based metal-organic frameworks. Their recent achievements include the publication of two groundbreaking papers in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. These studies delve into the potential applications of these frameworks in catalysis and electrocatalysis, marking crucial advancements in sustainable energy research. Read the article here.