First, they prepared clusters of
tungsten trioxide by directly evaporating the
tungsten trioxide onto a base of rutile titanium dioxide.
The researchers plan similar experiments, replacing
the tungsten trioxide catalyst with a similar one of molybdenum trioxide clusters.
This method produces identical clusters of
tungsten trioxide.
Methods: At the Department of Energy's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a national scientific user facility at PNNL, the researchers conducted a series of experiments to learn more about
tungsten trioxide.
The catalytic base does not affect the reaction significantly, an interesting result given that the base does affect other reactions catalyzed by
tungsten trioxide.
Understanding how
tungsten trioxide works with propanol reveals characteristics that can be applied more generally to other catalytic systems.
Tungsten trioxide was selected to fill the role of model catalyst, and propanol was used as the alcohol.
Electrochromic coatings, such as
tungsten trioxide (WO3), have the ability to change their optical properties in the presence of a small electric potential difference, a property essential for the construction of energy efficient windows.