Copernic Catalysts, Inc. announced an exclusive four-year research collaboration with Schrödinger, Inc. to help accelerate the discovery and development of sustainable catalysts for applications in e-fuels and bulk chemicals. The collaboration enables Copernic to leverage Schrödinger?s technology platform, in conjunction with Copernic?s expertise in catalyst design and scale up, to enhance the discovery of novel materials. Better catalysts would lead to faster, more energy-efficient chemical reactions, advancing the decarbonization of the energy and chemical industries.

Copernic?s expanded collaboration with Schrödinger grows out of a previous agreement, in which Copernic engaged Schrödinger for modeling support. This collaboration compressed what would normally take decades of research into a streamlined two-year effort to develop an improved, drop-in replacement catalyst for zero- and low-carbon ammonia synthesis. Industrial ammonia production currently has a significant carbon footprint, accounting for almost half a billion tons of carbon emissions annually.

Developing novel catalysts for the production of zero- and low-carbon ammonia would help significantly reduce the carbon footprint from ammonia-derived products like agricultural fertilizer. Novel catalysts may also help make the production of green ammonia more cost-effective, enabling its widespread use in the energy sector as a zero-carbon shipping fuel, as a vector for green hydrogen transport, and for low-carbon electrical power generation. As part of the collaboration, Copernic and Schrödinger will work together to identify the key aspects of materials chemistry critical to improved catalyst performance.

Based on these ideas, Schrödinger will leverage its computational platform to predict target properties of novel catalysts and identify promising candidates. Copernic will be responsible for testing and synthesizing the identified catalysts, scaling them up, and commercializing them. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.