A catalyst accelerates a chemical transformation. Applications of catalysis, based on this simple definition, are estimated to be worth £700 billion worldwide and impact on issues such as energy, pollution control, sustainability and chemical manufacture.
Catalysis research at Oxford encompasses a wide variety of areas and includes the design of new catalysts and catalytic processes of relevance to the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, fine chemical and petrochemical industries. Mechanism guided catalyst design, polymerization catalysis, electrocatalysis, application to chemical biology and complex molecule synthesis, biocatalysis, organocatalysis, transition metal catalysis and catalysis as applied to new energy vectors and sustainability are just some of the areas being explored by research groups at Oxford.