# Presentation: 461043

## BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES -- Serving the Present, Shaping the Future

***William S. Millman***
***Basic Energy Sciences******May 14, 2002***

***Catalysis and Nanoscience Activities***
***in Basic Energy Sciences***
***Looking to the Future***

***BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES -- ******Serving the Present, Shaping the Future***

## Why Catalysis and Why Now

**The Academy’s Committee on Science Engineering and Public Policy in a recent report concluded that catalysis is a sub field in which the US is among the world leaders, but is broadly expected to lose its current international position because of refocusing investments in the industrial sector without of transfer of this expertise to the educational sector, as has occurred in many other sub fields.**
**BES has been, and continues to be, the dominant Federal supporter of fundamental catalytic science.**
**Federal funding of catalysis in the US has not kept pace with the cost of doing research for over a decade.**
**Industrial funding of catalysis has become increasingly focused on short term issues.**
**Academic catalysis researchers are declining in numbers or shifting to other fields.**
**Advances in nanoscience understanding offer new approaches to establishing a firm scientific basis for advancing our understanding and ability to predict catalytic phenomena.**
**BES has the principle federal responsibility for the vitality of this field.**

## Catalysis and Nanoscience

**The nanoscale is where supported catalysts have been since before we understood why the size scale was unique.  We are now beginning to understand this new scale where chemical and materials properties depend on size and shape, as well as composition, and differ significantly from the same properties in the bulk. **
**“****Nanoscience” seeks to understand these novel new properties.**
**Catalysis seeks to develop materials and structures that exhibit novel properties that facilitate chemistry and significantly improved control of chemical properties and functions due to their nanoscale size. **
**The goals of catalysis and nanoscience are:**
**to understand and predict the properties of materials at the nanoscale and understand how they facilitate chemical reactivity.**
**to “manufacture” nanoscale components from the bottom up.**
**to integrate nanoscale components into macroscopic scale objects and catalysts for real-world uses.**

## BES Expectations for this Workshop

**Identify where we want catalysis to be in 10, 25 and 50 Years.**
**Identify the opportunities and challenges in catalysis and catalytic materials and what we need to learn in order to get there.**
**Identify the importance of nanoscale catalysis phenomena in achieving understanding and control of chemical transformations.**
**Provide a report to:**
**define a scientific agenda that is broadly acceptable to the scientific community. **
**assist BES with near and long term program planning.**
**support budget preparation, justification, and defense in FY2004 and beyond.**
**provide a guidance document for future grant/proposal submissions and facility instrumentation/utilization.**

## Next Steps – This Workshop

**Catalysis Futures Workshop – Interactions between Heterogeneous, homogeneous and biocatalysis.**
**Beyond single disciplinary studies.**
**Interactions between theory, surface chemistry, spectroscopy, biochemistry, inorganic chemistry and materials chemistry.**
**Center(s) as a mechanism to integrate research.**
**Focus on fundamental understanding of how, why and the prediction (theory) of catalytic phenomena.**
**Get beyond building molecules and surfaces and start learning how to predict the electronic structures needed to facilitate targeted chemistry.**
**It’s the electrons that do it!  Now how do we design them to do what we want.**

## *

***NNI FY 2003 Funding Requests******DOE is one of the three lead agencies***

**+ up to $15M in FY 02 **

*****

## National Nanotechnology Initiative Focus Areas

**Long-term, fundamental nanoscience and engineering research**
***FY 2001:  BES awarded $26.5M in new NNI funds based on peer review --  ******	******           76 university grants ($16.1M) and 12 laboratory awards ($10.4M)***
***FY 2002:  BES may award up to $15M based on peer review***
***	******	******           ******340 university proposals + 37 national lab proposals under review***
***FY 2003 (Request)***
***	******	******          ******BES ******$93M for research + $35M for construction and PED***
***	******	******	******(including ~$6.0M for Catalysis in Nanoscience)***
***	******FY 2004: ...***
**Centers and networks of excellence**
***BES Nanoscale Science Research Centers – the DOE “flagship” NNI activity***
**Research infrastructure**
***BES supports the synchrotron light sources, neutron scattering facilities, and other specialized facilities in support of nanoscale science***

## Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs)

***Research facilities for synthesis, processing, and fabrication of nanoscale materials***
***Co-located with existing user facilities (synchrotron radiation light sources, neutron scattering facilities, other specialized facilities) to provide characterization and analysis capabilities***
***Operated as user facilities; available to all researchers; access determined by peer review of proposals***
***Provide specialized equipment and support staff not readily available to the research community***
***Conceived with broad input from university and industry user communities to define equipment scop*****e**
**NSRCs have been extensively reviewed by external peers and by the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee**

***Nanoscale Science Research Centers (NSRCs)***

## NSRCs (       ) and the BES User Facilities

** **

## BES Expectations for this Workshop

**Identify where we want catalysis to be in 10, 25 and 50 Years.**
**Identify the opportunities and challenges in catalysis and catalytic materials that we need to learn in order to get there.**
**Identify the importance of catalysis and nanoscale phenomena in achieving understanding and control of chemical transformations.**
**Provide a report to:**
**define a scientific agenda that is broadly acceptable to the scientific community. **
**assist BES with near and long term program planning.**
**support budget preparation, justification, and defense in FY2004 and beyond.**
**provide a guidance document for future grant/proposal submissions and facility instrumentation/utilization.**