Faculty

Professor of Chemistry
Director of Graduate Admissions

Dr. Grabow received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 2008, followed by postdoctoral appointments at the Technical University of Denmark and Stanford University. His expertise is the application of electronic structure calculations, kinetic modeling, data science and transient kinetic characterization to problems in heterogeneous catalysis, surface science and electrochemical energy storage. His papers have been cited more nearly 5,000 times and he was elected into the 2018 Class of Influential Researchers by Industrial and Engineering Chemistry (IE&C) Research. Prof. Grabow won the prestigious U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award (2014) and the NSF CAREER Award (2015), the Excellence in Research Award at the assistant professor level from the University of Houston (2017), among others. He currently serves as Chair of the Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS), as Editor of Surface Science and on the International Advisory Board of ChemCatChem. He has previously served as (Vice/Past) Chair of the AIChE Catalysis and Reaction Engineering (CRE) Division and and is a past member of the Early Career Advisory Board of ACS Catalysis.
Methane Activation and Conversion
Natural gas is an abundant resource in the U.S. but its use is currently limited to electricity generation and hydrogen generation through
steam-reforming. Using natural gas in internal combustion engines is easily feasible, however, the exhaust emissions are rich in methane, which is a potent green house gas. For natural gas powered vehicles to take over a larger market share, new emissions control
catalysts are needed. Alternatively, methane can be used as C1 feedstock for the catalytic production of hydrocarbons, olefins, alcohol, aromatics and many other chemicals.
The main challenge in any methane conversion process is the initial activation of methane, or breaking the strong C-H bond (435 kJ/mol). As of today, the potential for methane as a feedstock for the production of useful chemicals has not yet been fully realized and an economically viable methane to higher value chemicals upgrade process could revolutionize the chemical industry. The CCIC group uses computational catalyst screening techniques to find new catalyst formulations that lower the required temperature for C-H bond activation, which will improve the conversion during methane combustion in an exhaust catalytic converter, and increase the selectivity to the desired products, when methane is used as feedstock. The types of catalytic systems include metal alloys, metal/metal-oxide interfaces, and zeolites.
Unifying Principles in Hydrotreating Catalysis
Fast pyrolysis of biomass, a renewable and sustainable resource, is a promising low-cost technology that produces bio-oil suitable for use as transportation fuel after an appropriate upgrade step. The upgrade can be achieved by reducing the high oxygen content of up to 35 – 40 wt.% through hydrotreatment over heterogeneous catalysts, but the complexity of bio-oils with ca. 400 different oxygenated compounds and the fact that this technology has only recently gained interest are both responsible for the lack of fundamental knowledge in this field. In contrast, the petroleum industry has been using hydrotreating reactors with cobalt and nickel promoted molybdenum sulfide based catalysts for the removal of sulfur impurities for decades, and the catalyst structure, nature of the active site, and elementary reaction steps are largely understood.
Our group's efforts build on the hypothesis that the hydrotreating processes for the removal of oxygen and sulfur are fundamentally similar at the atomic-scale and existing knowledge from the treatment of petroleum derived feedstock can be leveraged for the design of novel catalysts for the upgrade of bio-oil. Electronic structure simulations and kinetic modeling will be used to improve our mechanistic understanding of bio-oil hydrotreatment and to derive characteristic catalyst properties that are responsible for high activity and selectivity. From the resulting structure-function relationships we can extract common features of hydrotreating catalysts and develop unifying principles that lead to the accelerated design of novel materials for bio-oil upgrade.
Vehicle Emissions Control
Advanced combustion engines provide more fuel flexibility, higher net efficiencies, and lower NOx and particulate matter emissions than current diesel engine technologies. However, the exhaust gas must still be treated to meet emissions regulation standards. Catalytic converters for traditional gasoline and diesel vehicle exhaust aftertreatment exist, but the emerging advanced engines technologies pose new challenges to the catalytic converter. For example, higher efficiency implies that less waste heat is produced and the exhaust must be treated at a lower temperature.
Presently available catalysts are not active at lower temperatures and therefore, engines must be operated with excess fuel, to increase the exhaust temperature and to heat the catalyst to the required temperature. Combustion at lower temperature also results in higher concentrations of carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons that must be abated. The exhaust gas composition also depends strongly on the fuel type and quality. Given the abundance of low cost natural gas, a transition to natural gas powered vehicles has become very attractive and the appropriate natural gas engines exist. However, these engines produce much higher levels of methane, which acts as a green house gas and is about 20 times as potent than CO2. The CCIC group belongs to a team of researchers at UH and the Texas Center for Clean Engines, Emissions & Fuels, and together we work on tailoring vehicle exhaust catalytic converters for new engine technologies and fuels.
Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award, University of Houston, 2020
First holder of the Dan Luss Endowed Professorship, 2019
Elected into the 2018 Class of Influential Researchers, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry (I&EC) Research, 2018
Best Fundamental Paper Award from the AIChE-STS (South Texas Section), 2017 & 2014
Excellence in Research, Scholarship or Creative Activity Award - Assistant Professor Level, University of Houston, 2017
Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, 2015
NSF CAREER Award, 2015
U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Award, 2014
Teaching Excellence Award, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, 2014
Finalist in the Gerhard Ertl Young Investigator Award Competition, 2013
ICC Young Scientist Award, 2012
ACS-PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, 2012
Graduation with Distinction Award from the University of Stuttgart, 2003
DAAD Scholarship (German Academic Exchange Service), 2001
AIChE Catalysis & Reaction Engineering Division: Programming Chair (2012 - 2014), 2nd Vice Chair, Vice Chair, Chair, Past Chair (2016 - 2020), Social Media Director (2019 - 2021)
Southwest Catalysis Society (SWCS): Director (2014 - 2016), Secretary (2017 - 2018), Vice Chair, Chair, Past Chair (2018 - 2022)
Editor of Surface Science, since 2020
International Advisory Board, (2017 - present)
Early Career Advisory Board of ACS Catalysis (2017 - 2018)
Review College of FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, The Research Foundation – Flanders)
Member of AIChE, ACS, NACS, SWCS, IPMI, AAAS, AVS.
Journal Papers / Refereed Journal Publications
- Bruno, J. E., et al, "On the Limited Role of Electronic Support Effects in Selective Alkyne Hydrogenation: A Kinetic Study of Au/MOx Catalysts Prepared from Oleylamine-Capped Colloidal Nanoparticles." Chemcatchem 11(6): 1650-1664., 2019
- Chandler, B., et al., "H2 oxidation over supported Au nanoparticle catalysts: Mechanistic evidence for heterolytic H2 activation at the metal-support interface." Abstracts of Papers of the American Chemical Society 257., 2019
- Do, Q. K., et al., "The Synergy of Dilute Pd and Surface Oxygen Species for Methane Upgrading on Au3Pd(111)." Energy Technology, 2019
- A. Ghorbanpour, J. D. Rimer, & L. C. Grabow, "Computational Assessment of the Dominant Factors Governing the Mechanism of Methanol Dehydration over H-ZSM-5 with Heterogeneous Aluminum Distribution", ACS Catalysis, 6(4), 2287-2298 [DOI], 2016
- B. Baek, A. Aboiralor, J.D. Massa, S. Wang, P. Kharidehal, L.C. Grabow, "Strategy to Improve Catalytic Trend Predictions for Methane Oxidation and Reforming", AIChE Journal [DOI], 2016
- H. V. Tran, H. A. Doan, B. D. Chandler & L. C. Grabow, "Water-assisted oxygen activation during selective oxidation reactions", Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering, 13, 100-108. [DOI], 2016
- J. Shuai, H. D. Yoo, Y. L. Liang, Y. F. Li, Y. Yao & L. C. Grabow, "Density functional theory study of Li, Na, and Mg intercalation and diffusion in MoS2 with controlled interlayer spacing", Materials Research Express, 3(6) [DOI], 2016
- K. A. Goulas, S. Sreekumar, Y. Song, P. Kharidehal, G. Gunbas, P. J. Dietrich, F. D. Toste, "Synergistic Effects in Bimetallic Palladium-Copper Catalysts Improve Selectivity in Oxygenate Coupling Reactions", Journal of the American Chemical Society, 138(21), 6805-6812 [DOI], 2016
- M. D. Oleksiak, A. Ghorbanpour, M. T. Conato, B. P. McGrail, L. C. Grabow, R. K. Motkuri & J. D. Rimer, "Synthesis Strategies for Ultrastable Zeolite GIS Polymorphs as Sorbents for Selective Separations", Chemistry-a European Journal, 22(45), 16078-16088 [DOI] , 2016
- A. Ghorbanpour, J. D. Rimer, L. C. Grabow*, “Periodic, vdW-corrected density functional theory investigation of the effect of Al siting in H-ZSM-5 on chemisorption properties and site-specific acidity”, Catal. Comm. 52, 98-102 [DOI], 2014
- J. Saavedra, H. A. Doan, C. J. Pursell, L. C. Grabow*, B. D. Chandler*, "The critical role of water at the gold-titania interface in catalytic CO oxidation", Science [DOI], 2014
Link to file - P. G. Moses, L. C. Grabow, E. M. Fernandez, B. Hinnemann, H. Topsøe, K. G. Knudsen, J. K. Nørskov*, "Trends in hydrodesulfurization catalysis based on realistic surface models”,Catal. Lett. [DOI], 2014
- H. Zeuthen, W. Kudernatsch, G. Peng, L. R. Merte, L. K. Ono, L. Lammich, Y. Bai, L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, S. Wendt, F. Besenbacher, “Structure of Stoichiometric and Oxygen-Rich Ultrathin FeO(111) Films Grown on Pd(111)” , J. Phys. Chem. C 117, 15155-15163 [DOI], 2013
- J. Varley, H. A. Hansen, N. Ammitzbøll, L. C. Grabow, A. A. Peterson, J. Rossmeisl, J. K. Nørskov, “Ni-Fe-S cubanes in CO2 reduction electrocatalysis: A DFT study”, ACS Catal. 3, 2640-2643 [DOI], 2013
- P. Rubert-Nason, M. Mavrikakis, C. T. Maravelias, L. C. Grabow, L. T. Biegler, “Advanced solution methods for microkinetic models of catalytic reactions: A methanol synthesis case study”, AIChE J. 60, 1336-1346 [DOI], 2013
- A. A. Peterson, L. C. Grabow, T. P. Brennan, B. Shong, C. Ooi, D. M. Wu, C. W. Li, A. Kushwaha, A. J. Medford, F. Mbuga, L. Li, J. K. Nørskov*, “Finite-size effects in O and CO adsorption for the late transition metals”, Top. Catal. 55, 1276-1282 [DOI], 2012
- B. D. Chandler*, S. Kendell, H. Doan, R. Korkosz, L. C. Grabow, C. J. Pursell, "NaBr Poisoning of Au/TiO2 Catalysts: Effects on Kinetics, Poisoning Mechanism, and Estimation of the Number of Catalytic Active Sites", ACS Catal. 2, 684-694 [DOI], 2012
- L. C. Grabow*, "When Outliers Make All The Difference", ChemCatChem 4, 1887-1888 [DOI], 2012
- L. C. Grabow*, B. Hvolbæk, H. Falsig, J. K. Nørskov, "Search Directions for Direct H2O2 Synthesis Catalysts Starting from Au12 Nanoclusters", Top. Catal. 55, 336-344 [DOI], 2012
- L. R. Merte, G. Peng, R. Bechstein, F. Rieboldt, C. A. Farberow, L. C. Grabow, W. Kudernatsch, S. Wendt, E. Laegsgaard, M. Mavrikakis, F. Besenbacher, "Water-Mediated Proton Hopping on an Iron Oxide Surface", Science 336, 889-893 [DOI], 2012
- L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, “On the mechanism of methanol synthesis on Cu through CO and CO2 hydrogenation”, ACS Catal. 1, 365-384 [DOI], 2011
- L. R. Merte, J. Knudsen, F. M. Eichhorn, S. Porsgaard, H. Zeuthen, L. C. Grabow, E. Lægsgaard, H. Bluhm, M. Salmeron, M. Mavrikakis, F. Besenbacher, “CO-induced embedding of Pt adatoms in a partially-reduced FeOx film on Pt(111)”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 10692-10695 [DOI], 2011
- L. R. Merte, L. C. Grabow, G. Peng, J. Knudsen, H. Zeuthen, W. Kudernatsch, S. Porsgaard, E. Lægsgaard, M. Mavrikakis, F. Besenbacher, “Tip-Dependent Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Imaging of Ultrathin FeO Films on Pt(111)”, J. Phys. Chem. C 115, 2089-2099 [DOI], 2011
- J. Knudsen, L. R. Merte, L. C. Grabow, F. M. Eichhorn, S. Porsgaard, H. Zeuthen, R. T. Vang, E. Lægsgaard, M. Mavrikakis, F. Besenbacher, “Reduction of FeO/Pt(111) thin films by exposure to atomic hydrogen”, Surf. Sci. 604, 11-20 [DOI], 2010
- L. C. Grabow, B. Hvolbæk, J. K. Nørskov, “Understanding trends in catalytic activity: The effect of adsorbate-adsorbate interactions for CO oxidation over transition metals”, Top. Catal. 53, 298-310 [DOI], 2010
- S. Wang, B. Temel, G. Jones, L. C. Grabow, F. Studt, T. Bligaard, F. Abild-Pedersen, C. Christensen, J. K. Nørskov, “Universal Brønsted-Evans-Polanyi Relations for C-C, C-O, CN, N-O, N-N, and O-O Dissociation Reactions”, Catal. Lett. 141, 370-373 [DOI], 2010
Books
- Lars C. Grabow, “Computational Catalyst Screening” in “Computational Catalysis” edited by A. Asthagiri and M. J. Janik. RSC Catalysis Series, Cambridge, UK [DOI], 2014
JOURNAL PAPERS / REFEREED JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS
- L. C. Grabow, J. J. Uhlrich, T. F. Kuech, M. Mavrikakis, “Effectiveness of in-situ NH3 annealing treatments for the removal of oxygen from GaN(0001) surfaces” Surf. Sci. 603, 387-399 [DOI], 2009
- L. R. Merte, J. Knudsen, L. C. Grabow, R. T. Vang, E. Lægsgaard, M. Mavrikakis, F. Besenbacher, “Correlating STM contrast and atomic-scale structure by chemical modification: Vacancy dislocation loops on FeO/Pt(111)”, Surf. Sci. 603, L15-L18 [DOI], 2009
- J.J. Uhlrich, L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, T. F. Kuech, “Practical Surface Treatments and Surface Chemistry of n-Type and p-Type GaN”, J. Elec. Mat. 37, 439 [DOI], 2008
- L. C. Grabow, A. A. Gokhale, S. Evans, J. A. Dumesic, M. Mavrikakis, “Mechanism of the water gas shift reaction on Pt: First principles, experiments, and microkinetic modeling”, J. Phys. Chem. C 112, 4608 [DOI], 2008
- L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, “Nanocatalysis Beyond the Gold-Rush Era”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47, 7390-7392 [DOI], Angew. Chem. 120, 7500-7502 [DOI], 2008
- N. Schumacher, K. Andersson, L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, J. Nerlov, I. Chorkendorff, “Interaction of carbon dioxide with Cu overlayers on Pt(111)”, Surf. Sci. 602, 702 [DOI], 2008
- S. Seo, L. C. Grabow, M. Mavrikakis, R. J. Hamers, N. J. Thompson, P. Evans, “Molecular-scale structural distortions near vacancies in pentacene”, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 153313 [DOI], 2008
- L. C. Grabow, Y. Xu, M. Mavrikakis, “Lattice strain effects on the CO oxidation on Pt(111)”,Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 8, 3369-3374 [DOI] (featured as cover page image), 2006
- N. Schumacher, A. Boisen, S. Dahl, A. A. Gokhale, S. Kandoi, L. C. Grabow, J. A. Dumesic, M. Mavrikakis, I. Chorkendorff, “Trends in low temperature water-gas shift reactivity on transition metals”, J. Cat. 229, 265 [DOI], 2005
- S. Kandoi, A. A. Gokhale, L. C. Grabow, J. A. Dumesic, M. Mavrikakis, “Why Au and Cu Are More Selective Than Pt for Preferential Oxidation of CO at Low Temperature”, Catal. Lett.93, 93 [DOI], 2004