Onyinyechukwu Goodness Njoku’s Global Research Reveals Flaw in Decades of Catalyst Design

By Salami Adeyinka

For more than half a century, the global scientific community has relied on a powerful but fundamentally incomplete idea to design the materials that drive modern industry: catalysts. These unseen workhorses are responsible for speeding up reactions in everything, from fertilizers to fuels, from hydrogen energy to everyday plastics. Without them, nearly every process in our industrial world would grind to a halt.

But what if the scientific foundation guiding catalyst design (i.e., the principles used to create cleaner energy, refine fuels, and cut emissions) has been missing something crucial all along?

That question lies at the heart of a groundbreaking study led by Onyinyechukwu Goodness Njoku, a Nigerian-born doctoral researcher in Chemical Engineering at Clarkson University, in the United States. Working with The McCrum Group, a high-performance computational research team at Clarkson University, Njoku uses supercomputers to simulate real-world materials. She has discovered that much of what the world believes about how catalysts behave is only half the story.

For decades, scientists have focused their catalytic design mostly on pristine, smooth, flat surfaces, the equivalent of studying a perfectly smooth, empty parking lot to understand a bustling city. These models have served as the backbone of modern materials science, shaping industries worth billions. Yet, as Njoku’s study reveals, the real world of catalysts is not flat. It is rugged, uneven, and full of microscopic cliffs and ridges known as step defects.

Her research, presented at the 2023 National Conference of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, turns long-held theories inside out. Using Density Functional Theory (DFT), a quantum modeling method that maps how electrons move across atoms, Njoku simulated catalysts at the atomic level, exploring how these tiny steps behave under electronic strain. In her words, “These simulations require thousands of hours of computation. DFT is like a digital laboratory. We can test hypotheses that would take years and millions of dollars to explore experimentally.”

What they found shocked the scientific community. The so-called “defects” often respond to forces in the exact opposite way predicted by traditional models. When a catalyst’s flat surface is compressed, its activity may increase. But at a step (a one-atom-high ledge on the surface), the same compression can make it less reactive. In some cases, it changes nothing at all.

The implication is profound: for over fifty years, materials have been designed according to principles that apply only to the smoothest parts of a catalyst — not to the jagged, complex landscapes where the most important chemistry happens. To the layperson, the idea can be compared to studying a perfectly flat road to understand how vehicles move through a mountain range. While smooth roads are easy to model, real driving involves curves, slopes, and steps. “A flat road might let you predict speed, but if you never account for the hills, you’ll design the wrong engine,” Njoku explains.

This revelation is shaking up one of the world’s largest scientific and industrial domains. The global catalyst market – valued at over $40 billion, underpins sectors from energy to manufacturing. Njoku’s findings indicate that the predictive rules many companies rely on could be oversimplified or even misleading.
More than just identifying the problem, her research points to a solution: redesigning catalysts from the “steps up.” The discovery opens a path to tailor catalysts for everything from fuel cells and hydrogen production to CO₂ conversion and methane activation, reactions that sit at the core of the world’s clean energy ambitions.

Njoku’s journey to this breakthrough is as inspiring as the science itself. A native of Nigeria, she represents a few generations of African scientists redefining global research frontiers. Her work bridges continents and disciplines; combining chemical engineering, physics, and computation to uncover atomic truths with global consequence. “We’re not just explaining why materials behave differently but also identifying the atomic handles that engineers can use to tune them and make catalysts smarter, not just stronger,” she notes.

The potential economic and environmental payoff is immense. If step defects can be controlled, catalysts could be made far more selective. In the context of hydrogen fuel cells, that could mean cheaper, more efficient electricity generation. In CO2 reduction, it could help turn greenhouse gases into valuable fuels like methanol or ethanol. In ammonia synthesis, it could cut the massive energy demands of fertilizer production, a breakthrough with direct implications for global food security. “I have always believed that the world’s biggest problems will be solved by those who see both science and humanity. For me, catalysis isn’t just about reactions; it’s about creating systems that make life cleaner, fairer, and more sustainable,” she opines.

Her contribution is already drawing attention across the international research space. Colleagues praise her for the clarity and depth of her computational analysis and for challenging one of chemistry’s most accepted assumptions. The work signals a shift toward defect-aware materials design, a new generation of modeling that sees defects as the next frontier of innovation.

For Africa’s growing scientific diaspora, Njoku’s leadership in this research is deeply symbolic. It shows that world-class discovery is not limited by geography, and that African scientists are increasingly shaping the conversations that define the planet’s technological future. “Representation in science matters. When a young African girl reads about research like this and thinks, ‘I can do that,’ the world becomes a little more connected, and a lot more hopeful,” she says.