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

• December 2009: Chris Wilmer received a $4000 prize from InnoCentive for his proposal to solve water problems in developing countries. Read more here


• November 2009: Gloria Oxford received the CoMSEF Graduate Student Award from the AIChE Computational Molecular Science and Engineering Forum. Congratulations!


• September 2009: Congratulations to Gloria Oxford on receiving an AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering Division travel award!


• September 2009: Xiaoying Bao received the Department Distinguished Graduate Researcher Award and will present his work at the Department Retreat. Gloria Oxford was selected as one of two runners-up and will also give a talk at the Retreat. Congratulations!


• September 2009: Randy Snurr has published a "News & Views" piece on hydrogen storage in Nature Chemistry.


• August 2009: Randy Snurr has been appointed to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical.


• August 2009: Xiaoying Bao and Gloria Oxford have received terminal-year fellowships from the McCormick School of Engineering.


• June 2009: Randy Snurr was named the Leibniz Professor at the University of Leipzig for the Summer semester 2009.


• April 2009: Group's work on MOFs highlighed in TeraGrid news release.


• Research News Archive

Contact Information and Mailing Address

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

Office Location

Catalysis Building, room 121
2137 Tech Drive
MAP