Welcome to the Snurr Research Group Site

We are researching how nanoporous materials can (help to) save the world. We are interested in novel materials such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), as well as traditional materials like zeolites that are already widely used in industry. Porous materials with well-controlled structures at the nanoscale can be extremely useful because of their ability to recognize and discriminate between adsorbed molecules. This leads to applications of nanoporous materials in adsorption separations, catalysis, membrane processes, sensing, and energy storage.

Many of the projects in our group are aimed at solving environmental problems. Examples include reduction of automotive emissions, development of materials to store hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, and development of highly selective catalysts for green chemistry processes.

To solve these problems, we are using powerful molecular modeling techniques to develop a better understanding of surface interactions and dynamics in nanoporous materials. Our goal is to exploit this molecular-level information to develop new, highly-selective processes in adsorption separations, catalysis, and energy storage. Another goal of our research is to develop new simulation methods that can handle an ever-broader range of time and length scales to address important problems that cannot be simulated with current techniques. We perform some experiments in the group, particularly adsorption measurements, and we collaborate very closely with experimental research groups at Northwestern and around the world.

NEWS

• April 2008: Our paper "Applicability of the BET method for determining surface areas of microporous metal-organic frameworks" (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 129, 8552-8556 (2007)) is featured as a "Hot Paper" on the American Chemical Society website.


• April 2008: Randy Snurr is named a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry.


• April 2008: Congratulations to Xiaoying Bao on passing his qualifying exam!


• March 2008: David Dubbeldam has been awarded the Northwestern University Outstanding Post-doc Award from the American Institute of Chemists.


• February 2008: Randy Snurr is quoted in Chemical Science article Catalytic Cavities.


• February 2008: Gloria Emberger has received a grant to attend a summer school on Nanostructured Materials Modeling and Simulation in Greece this summer.


• January 2008: Randy Snurr is quoted in ScienceNOW article Porous Storage Gives Methane a Leg Up.


• December 2007: Post-doc Sudeep Punnathanam has accepted a faculty position at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. He is the 5th person from the group to take a faculty position in the past 4 years. Others are
  • Tina Duren, University of Edinburgh
  • Ashlie Martini, Purdue University
  • Lev Sarkisov, University of Edinburgh
  • Krista Walton, Kansas State University


• December 2007: Welcome to new members Ryan Malecky, a 1st-year Chemistry graduate student (jointly advised with Prof. Joe Hupp), and Denise Ford, a 1st-year Chemical Engineering graduate student.


• December 2007: Congratulations to Gloria Emberger on passing her qualifying exam!


• December 2007: Graduate student Houston Frost completes his PhD. Congratulations!


• Research News Archive

Contact Information

Randall Snurr
Dept. of Chemical Engineering
2145 Sheridan Road E136
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60208

Tel. 1-847-467-2977
Fax 1-847-467-1018
snurr "at" northwestern "dot" edu