Rajamani Gounder
R. Norris and Eleanor Shreve Professor of Chemical Engineering
Purdue University
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering
Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering
480 Stadium Mall Drive
West Lafayette, IN 47907-2100
Rajamani Gounder received his BS in Chemical Engineering with a double major in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 2006, performing research under Jim Dumesic. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 2011, completing his dissertation research under Enrique Iglesia. He then completed a postdoctoral stay at Caltech under the guidance of Mark Davis. He started his independent scientific career at Purdue University in 2013, and received early promotion both to the rank of associate professor with tenure in 2018 and full professor in 2021. He currently holds the R. Norris and Eleanor Shreve Chair in Chemical Engineering, and serves as Director of the Purdue Catalysis Center.
He leads a research group that is recognized for studying the kinetic and mechanistic details of catalytic reactions, for synthesizing and designing zeolites and porous materials with tailored site and surface properties, and for developing methods to characterize and titrate active sites in catalytic surfaces. His group studies the fundamental science of catalysis, and its practical applications to help protect our environment and to develop sustainable routes with a lower carbon footprint to synthesize the energy carriers, fuels and chemicals needed for society.
His research has been recognized by the PECASE, NSF and DOE Early Career Awards, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the Early Career in Catalysis Award from the ACS CATL Division, the Young Researcher Award from the International Zeolite Association, the Rutherford Aris Award from ISCRE, and the Faculty Excellence Award for Early Career Research from Purdue's College of Engineering. His teaching has been recognized by the AIChE 35 Under 35 Award for Education and Purdue ChE's Shreve (undergraduate) and Wankat (graduate) awards for teaching excellence, and his mentoring by Purdue ChE's Outstanding Mentoring of Graduate Students award. He has served as president and director of the Catalysis Club of Chicago, and has organized the technical programs for the North American Catalysis Society Meeting, the AIChE CRE Division, the Catalysis Club of Chicago, and the International Catalysis in Congress. He is an Editor of Journal of Catalysis, Science Advances, and Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Gounder Group Website
CISTAR web site
Research Interests
Heterogeneous catalysis is an integral component of many technologies that drive our chemical and energy industries. We are an experimental research group that studies the fundamentals and applications of heterogeneous catalysis and the targeted synthesis of inorganic solids and molecular sieves. We combine approaches in materials synthesis, characterization, and kinetic and mechanistic studies to probe the site requirements, reactive intermediates and elementary steps that constitute reaction mechanisms. We aim to develop structure-function relations that predict how reactant and catalyst structures influence reactivity and selectivity, in order to inform catalyst design and selection for new and existing catalytic processes.
Our current research interests fall within the following areas:
(i) catalytic routes and materials that enable the conversion of petroleum- and natural gas-derived hydrocarbons to transportation fuels and chemicals
(ii) catalyst design for selective reactions of multifunctional and polyfunctional molecules, such as those derived from renewable biomass, in liquid and gaseous phases
(iii) selective catalytic reduction of NOx (x = 1, 2) compounds with ammonia for pollution abatement in lean-burn engine emissions
We also focus on investigating microporous and mesoporous materials, zeolites, and molecular sieves, which are prevalent in the petrochemical refining and chemical industries. These crystalline oxides contain catalytically active sites confined within ordered void spaces (channels, cages, pockets) of molecular dimension (typically <2 nm). The properties of both the active sites and the confining environments can strongly influence catalytic rates and selectivities. In certain contexts, synthetic molecular sieves show catalytic reactivity and specificity reminiscent of that displayed by biological enzymes. One long-term goal of our research program is to understand fundamentally why and when synthetic materials exhibit such remarkable catalytic behavior.
We are a part of the Purdue Catalysis Center, which fosters interaction among faculty and students in catalysis research groups by collaborating on research projects, sharing resources and facilities, and holding weekly joint group meetings.
Research Group
Visiting Scholars and Postdoctoral Associates
- Soonhyoung Kwon
- Edgard Lebron Rodriguez
- Alexander Minne
- Dongpei Ye
Graduate Students
- Matthew Albert
- Orlando Carrillo-Ceja
- Bryan Cruz Delgado
- Ainslee Fogleman
- Garrett Gregory
- Sarah Gustafson Wagers
- Reagan Huckabee
- Nishant Kahane
- Caleb Lavallee
- Chase McGee
- Clayton Penttila
- Justin Rosa Rojas
- Diamarys Salome Rivera
- Ryoh-Suke Sekiya
Undergraduate Researchers
- Anna Chambers
- Brenden Fernandes
- Sarah Mollan
- Kaylani Tomlin
- Emerson Waltz
Awards and Honors
Selected Publications
"Synthetic Placement of Active Sites in MFI Zeolites for Selective Toluene Methylation to Para-Xylene", S. Ezenwa, H. Montalvo-Castro, A. J. Hoffman, H. Locht, J. Attebery, D.-Y. Jan, M. Schmidthorst, B. Chmelka, D. Hibbitts, R. Gounder, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 146, 10666-10678 (2024).
"Structural Changes to Molybdenum and Brønsted Acid Sites on MFI Zeolites During Methane Dehydroaromatization Reaction-Regeneration Cycles", A. N. Santiago-Colon, R. Gounder, Journal of Catalysis, 430, 115335 (2024).
"Influence of Framework Al Density in Chabazite Zeolites on Copper Ion Mobility and Reactivity During NOx Selective Catalytic Reduction with NH3" S. H. Krishna, A. Goswami, Y. Wang, C. B. Jones, D. P. Dean, J. T. Miller, W. F. Schneider, R. Gounder, Nature Catalysis, 6, 276-285, (2023).
"Influence of Bronsted-Acid Site Density on Reaction-Diffusion Phenomena that Govern Propene Oligomerization Rate and Selectivity in MFI Zeolites" E. E. Bickel, S. Lee, R. Gounder, ACS Catalysis, 13, 1257-1269, (2023).
"Hydrocarbon Products Occluded within Zeolite Micropores Impose Transport Barriers that Regulate Br??nsted Acid-Catalyzed Propene Oligomerization" E. E. Bickel, R. Gounder, JACS Au, 2, 2285-2295, (2022).
"Dynamic Interconversion of Metal Active Site Ensembles in Zeolite Catalysis" S. H. Krishna, C. B. Jones, R. Gounder, Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, 12, 115-136, (2021).
"Solvation and Mobilization of Copper Active Sites in Zeolites by Ammonia: Consequences for the Catalytic Reduction of Nitrogen Oxides" C. Paolucci, J. R. Di Iorio, W. F. Schneider, R. Gounder, Accounts of Chemical Research, 52, 1881-1892, (2020).
"Cooperative and Competitive Occlusion of Organic and Inorganic Structure Directing Agents within Chabazite Zeolites Influences Their Aluminum Arrangement" J. R. Di Iorio, S. Li, C. B. Jones, C. T. Nimlos, Y. Wang, E. Kunkes, V. Vattipalli, S. Prasad, A. Moini, W. F. Schneider, R. Gounder, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 142, 4807-4819, (2020).
"Parallel Alkane Dehydrogenation Routes on Bronsted Acid and Reaction-Derived Carbonaceous Active Sites in Zeolites" P. M. Kester, E. Iglesia, R. Gounder, Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 124, 15839-15855, (2020).
"Rigid Arrangements of Ionic Charge in Zeolite Frameworks Conferred by Specific Al Distributions Preferentially Stabilize Alkanol Dehydration Transition States" A. J. Hoffman, J. S. Bates, J. R. Di Iorio, S. V. Nystrom, C. T. Nimlos, R. Gounder, D. Hibbitts, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 59, 18686-18694, (2020).
"Dynamic Multinuclear Sites Formed by Mobilized Copper Ions in NOx Selective Catalytic Reduction" C. Paolucci, I. Khurana, A. A. Parekh, S. Li, A. J. Shih, H. Li, J. R. Di Iorio, J. D. Albarracin-Caballero, A. Yezerets, J. T. Miller, W. N. Delgass, F. H. Ribeiro, W. F. Schneider, R. Gounder, Science, 357, 898-903, (2017).
"Introducing Catalytic Diversity into Single-Site Chabazite Zeolites of Fixed Composition via Synthetic Control of Active Site Proximity" J. R. Di Iorio, C. T. Nimlos, R. Gounder, ACS Catalysis, 7, 6663-6674, (2017).