Position: 5th year graduate student
Contact: mball2@wisc.edu
Bio:
Madelyn Ball was born and raised in Potsdam, NY, a small town near the Adirondacks. She obtained her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire in 2010. During her time as an undergrad, she developed a passion for exploring the world through research, working on a range of research projects, including work on catalytic upgrading of biomass pyrolysis vapors. This work introduced Madelyn to catalysis and inspired her to continue studies in the field. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison under the supervision of James A. Dumesic. Her research is focused on the synthesis of well controlled bimetallic catalysts with the goal of developing fundamental structure-activity relationships for a range of systems. She has studied alcohol amination using AuPd catalysts and acetylene hydrogenation using AgPd catalysts. Her current work is focused on using in situ infrared spectroscopy to understand changes to catalyst structure and resulting selectivity trends during acetylene hydrogenation. Additionally, Madelyn uses transmission electron microscopy to study catalyst structure for metal, metal oxide, and zeolite-based materials.
Publications:
14. Ball, M.R.*; Wesley, T.S.*; Rivera-Dones, K.R.; Huber, G.W.; Dumesic, J.A. Amination of 1-Hexanol on Bimetallic AuPd/TiO2 Catalysts. Green Chem. (2018).
13. Brentzel, Z.J.; Ball, M.R.; Dumesic, J.A. Selective Production of Terminally Unsaturated Methyl Esters from Lactones Over Metal Oxide Catalysts. Catalysis Letters. 148, 3072-3081 (2018).
12. Motagamwala, A.H.*; Ball, M.R.*; Dumesic, J.A. Microkinetic Analysis and Scaling Relations for Catalyst Design. Annu. Rev. Chem. Biomol. Eng. 9, (2018).
11. Ro, I.; Aragao, I.B.; Brentzel, Z.J.; Liu, Y.; Rivera-Dones, K.R.; Ball, M.R.; Zanchet, D.; Huber, G.W.; Dumesic, J.A. Intrinsic activity of interfacial sites for Pt-Fe and Pt-Mo catalysts in the hydrogenation of carbonyl groups. Appl. Catal. B Environ. 231, 182–190 (2018).
10. He, J.; Burt, S.P.; Ball, M.R.; Zhao, D.; Hermans, I.; Dumesic, J.A.; Huber, G.W. Synthesis of 1,6-Hexanediol from Cellulose Derived Tetrahydrofuran-Dimethanol with Pt-WOx/TiO2 Catalysts. ACS Catal. 8, 1427–1439 (2018).
9. Ro, I.; Araago, I.B.; Chada, J.P.; Liu, Y.; Rivera-Dones, K.R.; Ball, M.R.; Zanchet, D.; Dumesic, J.A.; Huber, G.W. The role of Pt-FexOy interfacial sites for CO oxidation. J. Catal. 358, 19–26 (2018).
8. Aragao, I. B.; Ro, I.; Liu, Y.; Ball, M.R.; Huber, G.W.; Zanchet, D.; Dumesic, J.A. Catalysts synthesized by selective deposition of Fe onto Pt for the water-gas shift reaction. Appl. Catal. B Environ. 222, 182–190 (2018).
7. Carrero, C. A.; Burt, S. P.; Huang, F.; Venegas, J. M.; Love, A. M.; Mueller, P.; Zhu, H.; Grant, J. T.; Mathison, R.; Hanraham, M. P.; Rossini, A.; Ball, M.R.; Dumesic, J.; Hermans, I.Supported two- and three-dimensional vanadium oxide species on the surface of β-SiC. Catal. Sci. Technol. 7, 3707–3714 (2017).
6. Garg, A.; Milina, M.; Ball, M.R.; Zanchet, D.; Hunt, S.T.; Dumesic, J.A.; Román-Leshkov, Y. Transition-Metal Nitride Core@Noble-Metal Shell Nanoparticles as Highly CO Tolerant Catalysts. Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 56, 8828–8833 (2017).
5. Liu, Y.; Göeltl, F.; Ro, I.; Ball, M.R.; Sener, C.; Aragão, I.B.; Zanchet, D.; Huber, G.W.; Mavrikakis, M.; Dumesic, J.A. Synthesis Gas Conversion over Rh-Based Catalysts Promoted by Fe and Mn. ACS Catal. 7, 4550–4563 (2017).
4. Ro, I.; Sener, C.; Stadelman, T.M.; Ball, M.R.; Venegas, J.M.; Burt, S.P.; Hermans, I.; Dumesic, J.A.; Huber, G.W. Measurement of intrinsic catalytic activity of Pt monometallic and Pt-MoOx interfacial sites over visible light enhanced PtMoOx /SiO2 catalyst in reverse water gas shift reaction. J. Catal. 344, 784–794 (2016).
3. Karanjkar, P.U.; Burt, S.P.; Chen, X.; Barnett, K.J.; Ball, M.R.; Kumbhalkar, M.D.; Wang, X.; Miller, J.B.; Hermans, I.; Dumesic, J.A.; Huber, G.W. Effect of carbon supports on RhRe bifunctional catalysts for selective hydrogenolysis of tetrahydropyran-2-methanol. Catal. Sci. Technol. 6, 7841–7851 (2016).
2. Ro, I.; Liu, Y.; Ball, M.R.; Jackson, D.H.K.; Chada, J.P.; Sener, C.; Kuech, T.F.; Madon, R.J.; Huber, G.W.; Dumesic, J.A. Role of the Cu-ZrO2 Interfacial Sites for Conversion of Ethanol to Ethyl Acetate and Synthesis of Methanol from CO2 and H2. ACS Catal. 6, 7040–7050 (2016).
1. Wu, S.G.; Huang, L.; Head, J.; Ball, M.R.; Tang, Y.J.; Chen, D. Electrospray Facilitates the Germination of Plant Seeds. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. 14, 632–641 (2014).
