2019 Samuel Wesley Stratton Award

Zhou is recognized for his innovative use of neutron measurements and computational methods to reveal atomic interactions that significantly improve gas-separation and gas-storage processes in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Industrial technologies currently used to separate and purify mixtures of gases into their basic constituents, a task essential to the production of many chemical products, are energy intensive. Using neutron diffraction and ab-initio theoretical calculations, Zhou identified crucial components of the bonding of small molecules in MOFs that enable much simpler and cheaper methods of chemical separations, thereby pointing to new materials that can be used to store large quantities of methane gas safely.