Director of Partnerships for Research and Innovation, Ministry of Enviroment Water and Agriculture MEWA
nationality
Saudi Arabia
innovation
Catalyst by design to reuse nitrogen-containing chemicals for a sustainable industry
Maha's invention operates by reacting organometallic compounds with surfaces of highly divided oxides (or of metal nanoparticles). After designing a single-site well-defined catalyst and revealing the whole mechanism through isolating some catalytic intermediate, through a catalytic reaction test to prove the mechanism. Those catalysts can be tested in imine metathesis, hydroamination and many other reactions to produce useful products.
For the first time proving the whole mechanism that was considered before a black box, with some unprecedented catalytic intermediate being isolated and getting a good yield of useful chemical products.
In the future, Maha aims designing a single-site well-defined catalyst can be applied to different chemical reactions such as olefine metathesis which is important in the oil industry.