Hicks Research Group

Welcome to the Hicks Group Website!  We are primarily focused in the area of heterogeneous catalysis.  We seek to understand how the properties and structures of catalysts affect activity and selectivity for specific reactions.  We couple our experimental results with detailed characterization of the catalysts to develop relationships between the catalyst structure and the resulting catalytic activity. We also study catalyst stability at reaction conditions, as fundamental understanding of stability is required for advanced catalyst development and for process commercialization. Our research group can be categorized into three primary Research Directions. 

Research Direction 1: Plasma-Stimulated Catalysis. We focus our efforts on determining how nonthermal plasma and catalysts can be integrated to activate otherwise stable molecules (e.g., N2, CH4, CO2) and facilitate their transformations to desired products.  

Research Direction 2: Catalyst Discovery for Alkane/Alkene Transformations. The Hicks group seeks to discovery new, selective catalysts based on earth-abundant metals to more effectively use domestic shale gas resources. These catalysts allow natural gas resources to be converted to liquid fuels so that they can be transported more easily and utilized in existing devices such as vehicle engines. Our efforts here center on new alkane dehydrogenation and olefin oligomerization catalysts. 

Research Direction 3: Lignocellulosic Biomass and CO2 Conversions. The Hicks group continues to discover new catalytic materials for biomass conversion and CO2 utilization. Of particular interest are selective catalysts with high deoxygenation selectivity (biomass conversions) or high methanol selectivity (CO2 conversion). 

Latest News:  

May 2023: Congratulations to Dr. Cho for  defending his PhD with flying colors!

May 2023: Congratulations to Isaac for defending his Master's thesis!

May 2023: Great job Deanna for receiving the CEST Research Fellowship!

May 2023: Jessica and Yoonrae's paper investigating the effect of Ni2P with Co Doping on the performance and stability during propane dehydrogenation is now available in Catalysis Letters!

April 2023: Congratulations to Alba for winning the Outstanding TA award!

March 2023: Welcome to the group Dr. Wang!

February 2023: Congratulations to Russell and Hope for passing their Candidacy Exams. Great job!

January 2023: Congrats to Russell for receiving the Eilers fellowship for energy related research! 

November 2022:  Congratulations to Patrick and Hope for the recent paper in ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.

October 2022: Feiyang's paper on Non-Thermal Plasma-Assisted Steam Methane Reforming for Electrically-Driven Hydrogen Production is now available in Applied Catalysis A!

September 2022: Galiya, Yoonrae and Jessica's paper showcasing the stability of Ni-modified polyoxometalates in the presence of H2, CO, and CH4 has been published in Applied Catalysis A!

September 2022: Hope gave a presentation on his work at 2022 NOBCChE conference!

September 2022:  Congratulations to Jessica for her recent paper on the oxidative regeneration on Ni-Phosphide phase stability for propane dehydrogenation, published in I&EC Research

August 2022: Gerardo, Deanna, Russell and Hope presented their work at ACS Fall conference!

August 2022: Galiya, Yoonrae and Jessica have just published their paper investigating the performance of Ni-substituted polyoxometalates for propylene oligomerization in Catalysis Science and Technology!

August 2022: Congratulations to Dr. Muhlenkamp for succesfully defending her Ph.D.!

August 2022: Russell's recent paper investigating plasma-catalyst interface is now on ACS Engineering Au.

July 2022: Congratulation to Dr. Magazova for successfully defending her Ph.D.!

June 2022: "Recent Advances in Plasma Catalysis" from Russell, Feiyang, Deanna, Hope and Gerardo with our collaborators has been published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry: C!

May 2022: Deanna, Yoonrae, Feiyang and Jessica gave excellent talks at NAM27!

April 2022: Congratulations to Dr. Geng for successfully defending his Ph.D.!

March 2022: Congratulations Deanna and Gerardo for passing their candidacy exam!

We are proud members of a recently funded NSF ERC: NSF Center for Innovative and Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources (CISTAR).