The development of a prototype for the UKCH catalysis data infrastructure (CDI) presents a dashboard listing of publications, datasets, and authors data. The data is presented as indicators that demonstrate the impact of the UKCH, providing insight into the number and types of publications, author statistics, institutional collaborations, and research…
Empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR) has been used to simulate and probe mixtures of benzene and cyclohexane when confined in the pores of MCM-41. This study has been enabled by the development of an innovative combined NMR and total neutron scattering system. This technique allows for time resolved chemical compositions that…
The intrinsic ability of zeolite H-ZSM-5 to convert methanol into hydrocarbons (MTH) promises a substantial impact on the petro-chemical industry due to its ability to provide better/renewable alternatives to the conventional fossil fuel based gasoline or polymer grade olefin processes [1,2]. It has triggered extensive research to understand the underlying…
John is a Professor of Structural Biology focused on the global challenge of plastic pollution and leads a team of scientists researching natural enzyme discovery and engineering. Their work revealed the detailed workings of an enzyme that can digest polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and more recently, demonstrated that engineering these enzymes…
The “MAX”-phase of over 100 ternary carbides/nitrides was first identified in the 1960s.[1] The nomenclature is an abbreviation of the general formula of these 2D material ‘Mn+1AXn’, whereby M denotes a transition metal and A/X represent an A group element and carbon/nitrogen respectively.[2] They also display a very novel combination of properties…
Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in computational protein design, to either design new enzymes completely de novo or to redesign existing enzymes towards novel catalytic properties. The Kemp elimination reaction has been a particularly popular model system for both experimental and computational design studies, despite inherent challenges…
Homogeneous/biocatalysis in traditional aqueous media often suffer from poor substrate solubility, and difficult catalyst/product separation and subsequent catalyst recycle. Ionic liquids possess a number of tunable properties favorable for supporting homogeneous/biocatalysis integrity by adjusting ionic liquids hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity, acid-base properties and intermolecular interactions, hence, ionic liquids are emerging as a…
Enzyme-mediated damage repair or mitigation is commonly found in nucleic acids, while is rare in proteins. In human MAPK-ERK signaling cascade, we found that the damages through the elimination of phosphorylated Ser/Thr to dehydroalanine/dehydrobutyrine (Dha/Dhb) could generate aberrantly activated MEK kinases, which might alter or disrupt cell signaling. In the…
Exploiting polyolefin materials to create a circular economy is possible via catalytic chemical recycling, as they represent a highly refined hydrocarbon source with similarities to crude oil, and this is an important supplement to mechanical recycling of plastics. Whilst some polymers such as poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) are amenable to mechanical…
