Catalysis science and engineering provide a powerful means to upgrade contaminated water to a quality level that matches its intended use, if operational constraints (ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure, variable water quality) can be overcome with materials with improved properties. I will describe two catalytic systems from my laboratory: (1) nitrate hydrogenation to dinitrogen using In-supported Pd heterogeneous catalyst will be discussed, as a means to remove nitrate from water destructively (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscatal.7b01371); and (2) the photocatalytic oxidation of a class of water-soluble, fluorine-containing chemical compounds called "PFAS" using boron nitride (BN) under ultraviolet light irradiation (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00434). These reduction and oxidation reactions are excellent model systems to describe the successes and challenges of materials synthesis, spectroscopy, modeling, and structure-property analysis. These are also examples of how heterogeneous catalysis concepts can be applied in new ways to address problems under-explored by chemical engineers (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00433-8 and https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.accounts.8b00642).
