Pulsed 'Laser-in-Liquids' Approach Speeds Catalyst Discovery

A team at the University of Rochester showed the efficacy of pulsed lasers in accelerating research into chemical catalysts. The development of even a single catalyst material capable of triggering the arrangement and motion of the atoms needed to react favorably with the right chemical compounds can take months or even years using traditional wet chemistry procedures that use only chemical reactions — often in the liquid phase — to grow nanoparticles.