“It just makes you feel less alone”: Using the power of play to break menopause taboos in the workplace

Health psychologists from University of Staffordshire have adopted a novel approach to support women going through the menopause.

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Staffordshire University

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Researchers used Playmobil to encourage open conversations about the menopause at work.

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Credit: University of Staffordshire

Health psychologists from University of Staffordshire have adopted a novel approach to support women going through the menopause.

 

A new study, published in the journal Menopause, highlights how the popular toy Playmobil can be used to understand and encourage open conversations about women’s experiences of the menopause at work.

 

Reports indicate that 3 in 5 women are negatively impacted at work because of menopause. Almost 900,000 women have left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms, and women continue to experience menopause-related discrimination.

 

Dr Alison Owen, Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology, explained: “Menopause is a significant life event that all women experience. The average age of menopause in the United Kingdom is 51, but women typically experience symptoms for several years before and after. The health changes associated with menopause can have a negative, sometimes debilitating, impact on a variety of life domains, including professionally.

 

“As menopause can be seen as a taboo health topic, and one that women can be reluctant to discuss within the workplace, it is important to find supportive and empathic methods to facilitate these conversations.”

 

Playmobil has raised many generations of young people, serving as an educational toy and encouraging imaginative play, interaction, and creativity. Its Playmobil pro kits are also used in professional and educational settings to support teams in prototyping, project management, and creative workshops.

 

A growing body of evidence shows the value of using playful approaches in research; however, very little research has explored the use of Playmobil as a research method.

 

In this study, Dr Alison Owen, Dr Amy Burton and Dr Jennifer Taylor enlisted 12 co-researchers, aged 31-60, working at the University, who were perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.

 

Women attended a workshop where they used Playmobil pro kits to make a figure of themselves and create a representation of their experience of the menopause at work. Participants were encouraged to respond to each other’s stories and examples, resulting in an in-depth focus group discussion.

 

The conversations highlighted how participants’ physical symptoms of menopause can have a real impact on a person’s working life. For example, pain in their fingers and joints impacted their ability pick things up, to use computers or write things down.

 

Symptoms such as brain fog and irritability had led to doubts in the women’s perceived ability to be able to do their jobs to a standard they wanted to, with some of the participants expressing that they had considered handing their notices in at work as they felt unable to do the job anymore.

 

As well as talking about their experiences, participants had ideas for ways in which their work lives could be made easier during times when the menopause was impacting them. For example, the importance of flexi time. The women also discussed the importance of social support, and being able to speak to people who are going through the same things that they were.

 

When asked about how the session made her feel, one participant said, “Part of a powerful women’s circle. Included, reassured”, another said they felt “empowered”, and another said they felt “understood and valued”.

 

Another participant commented, “Just being able to speak to somebody and realise maybe somebody else is experiencing it. It doesn’t lessen its impact, it just makes you feel a bit less alone.”

 

Following the workshop, the researchers have been working with the participants to feedback on the University’s menopause policy and are looking to introduce new ways to support women in the workplace – such as a menopause café and menopause champions.

 

Dr Amy Burton, Associate Professor of Qualitative Health Research, said: “Using Playmobil proved to be an extremely effective tool for tackling the taboo of menopause in the workplace. The workshop provided a safe space, allowing the women to talk about their experiences in a “playful” way, which led to powerful and meaningful discussions in a way that participants enjoyed and felt comfortable with”.

 

Dr Jennifer Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Qualitative Psychological Research Methods, added: “Many of the participants found attending the research workshop very beneficial and healing, as they were able to speak to and meet other people with the same experience. For some of the participants, it was the first time they had spoken about menopause openly with a group of other people.

 

“Going forward, it would be useful to explore the use of Playmobil in other research projects and see if it works as effectively with other health topics.”

 

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Journal

Menopause

DOI

10.1097/GME.0000000000002599 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Using Playmobil as a creative research tool to explore women’s experiences of menopause in the workplace

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

In menopause, sleep is vitally important for women’s long-term heart health, study finds

University of Pittsburgh

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PITTSBURGH, July 9, 2025 — During the menopause transition, only 1 in 5 women have optimal scores using the American Heart Association’s health-assessment tool, known as Life’s Essential 8 (LE8). Among the tool’s eight components, four of them — blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality and nicotine use — are key in driving future cardiovascular risks, with sleep being particularly crucial for long-term cardiovascular health.

The findings – published today in Menopause – were made by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Baylor University.

“Previously we’ve shown that the menopause transition is a time of accelerating cardiovascular risk,” said senior author Samar R. El Khoudary, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of epidemiology at Pitt’s School of Public Health. “This study underscores that it’s also an opportunity for women to take the reins on their heart health.”

The team analyzed health data collected from about 3,000 women who participated in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), an ongoing, longitudinal, multi-site, multi-ethnic study of midlife women that began in 1996. The researchers compared the women’s LE8 scores at baseline, around age 46, to their evolving health trajectories over time, from subclinical cardiovascular disease measures, such as increased carotid-artery thickness, to cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and strokes, to mortality of all causes. The team also examined impacts of each of the individual LE8 components: nutrition, physical activity, smoking abstinence, sleep, body mass index, blood lipids, blood sugar and blood pressure.

The analysis showed that four LE8 components — blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality and nicotine use — were the most important factors driving the study participants’ future cardiovascular risks.

Above all, sleep emerged as a potential predictor for long-term effects of cardiovascular disease events and all-cause mortality, though it was not linked to the shorter-term effects of carotid-artery thickening. The team found that at midlife, meeting the bar for healthy sleep, defined in Life’s Essential 8 as seven to nine hours on average for most adults, may contribute to women’s heart health and longevity, a hypothesis that should be tested in a future clinical trial, said Ziyuan Wang, Ph.D. candidate at Pitt Public Health and first author.

Low total LE8 scores correlated with increased cardiovascular risk, as expected—however, only 21% of the midlife women studied had an ideal LE8 score.

“With heart disease being the leading cause of death in women, these findings point to the need for lifestyle and medical interventions to improve heart health during and after menopause among midlife women,” said El Khoudary.

Other authors on the study were Ziyuan Wang, M.S., Emma Barinas-Mitchell, Ph.D., Maria M. Brooks, Ph.D., Jared W. Magnani, M.D., M.Sc., and Rebecca C. Thurston, Ph.D., all of Pitt; Carol A. Derby, Ph.D., of Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and Kelly R. Ylitalo, Ph.D., of Baylor University.

## 
About the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health
Founded in 1948, the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health is a top-ranked institution of seven academic departments partnering with stakeholders locally and globally to create, implement and disseminate innovative public health research and practice. With hands-on and high-tech instruction, Pitt Public Health trains a diverse community of students to become public health leaders who counter persistent population health problems and inequities. 

www.upmc.com/media

 

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Journal

Menopause

DOI

10.1097/GME.0000000000002549 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Prospective associations of American Heart Association Life’s Essential 8 with subclinical measures of vascular health, cardiovascular disease events, and all-cause mortality in women traversing menopause: The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation study

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

COI Statement

R.C.T. is a consultant/advisor for Astellas Pharma, Bayer, and Hello Therapeutics, and received funding in the past from Happify Health and Vira Health. K.R.Y. was supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K01AG058754. J.W.M. receives institutional funding from NIH/NHBLI. The other authors have nothing to disclose.

 

Women more susceptible to certain subjective effects of alcohol during binge drinking episodes

Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute

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 Clinical Pharmacology of Substance Use Disorder group at IGTP

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Credit: IGTP

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• This is the conclusion of a clinical trial conducted by the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital and Research Institute, which has differentiated the impact of rapid alcohol consumption between women and men
• It is one of the few studies to date simulating binge drinking episodes and also analysing the combination of alcohol with energy drinks

A clinical trial led by the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital and Research Institute has found that women experience some of the subjective effects of acute alcohol intake, such as drunkenness and sedation, more intensely than men, when consumed over a short period of time.

The study is among the few conducted so far to analyse sex differences in the effects of binge drinking, defined as consuming more than 4 standard units of alcohol (SUA) in two hours for women, and more than 5 for men. This pattern is often associated with social events among young people and should not be underestimated, considering that one SUA contains 10 grams of alcohol, equivalent to half a mixed drink, a small beer, or a small glass of wine.

According to the 2023 EDADES home survey, 9.6% of people aged 15 to 64 (12.9% of men; 6.3% of women) reported at least one binge drinking episode in the previous month. This figure more than doubles among adolescents aged 14 to 18, reaching 24.2% (24.8% in boys; 23.5% in girls).

The aim of the trial was to determine, in general terms, whether women experience the effects of alcohol more intensely than men. But proving this is difficult if, as is often the case, the same amount of alcohol is given to both sexes. Women typically reach higher blood alcohol concentrations due to multiple factors: lower body weight, higher body fat, lower muscle mass, lower levels of alcohol-metabolising enzymes, and hormonal differences.

In this regard, Clara Pérez Mañá, a researcher with the Clinical Pharmacology of Substance Use Disorder group at the research institute, highlights a key aspect of the study: "We managed to adjust the doses so that the resulting alcohol concentrations were identical for both women and men. From this equal baseline, we observed that the effects were stronger in women, particularly regarding feelings of drunkenness and sedation".

The false sense of security from consuming energy drinks

The study, conducted between 2020 and 2022, involved 28 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25, half of them women. Over several sessions lasting 80 minutes, participants were given alcohol either on its own or mixed with energy drinks, among other conditions. Specifically, women consumed 55 grams of alcohol (just under three mixed drinks), while men consumed more: 70 grams, or the equivalent of about three and a half mixed drinks. Both groups reached blood alcohol concentrations of 0.46 mg/L, nearly twice the legal limit for expired air tests used to estimate blood alcohol levels in drivers in Spain, which is 0.25 mg/L.

In addition to recording participants' self-reported levels of drunkenness and sedation at various points, they were also asked to complete performance tests simulating driving ability. The trial did not find that women's driving performance -measured through reaction time and hand-eye coordination, for exemple- was worse than men's, despite reporting stronger subjective effects.

Once it was established that alcohol similarly impaired driving-related skills in both sexes, the study drew a final conclusion: that energy drinks do not counteract the effects of alcohol. Many people consume them with that intention, particularly to offset the sedative effects. "Mixing energy drinks with alcohol does not improve driving performance; on the contrary, it may create a false sense of control and safety that encourages risky decisions such as driving, engaging in risky sexual behaviour, or consuming other substances, as shown by other studies", Pérez Mañá concludes.

In fact, in this regard, the study -funded by the National Plan on Drugs- builds on one published four years ago, which concluded that mixing energy drinks with alcohol may increase the risk of traffic accidents. That earlier study, which did not differentiate between genders, was led by the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute, and was published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

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Journal

Frontiers in Pharmacology

DOI

10.3389/fphar.2025.1581229 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

No significant gender differences in driving-related skills following alcohol mixed with energy drinks during an experimental binge-drinking episode

COI Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

 

Coral calcification benefits from human hormone injections

Society for Experimental Biology

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Coral injection protocol

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Credit: Clemence Forin

Researchers have identified how thyroxine, a human thyroid hormone, can positively influence the life-critical calcification in soft corals, and have developed a unique technique for injecting molecules into coral tissues.

“We understand a lot about hormones in vertebrates, but much less about hormones in invertebrate animals such as corals,” says Clémence Forin, a PhD student at the Scientific Centre of Monaco. “We wanted to learn more about how they process hormones to find out how they are involved into the calcification process.”

A major barrier to researching the role and regulation of hormones in corals has been the lack of established techniques. To address this, Ms Forin and her team set out to develop a novel injection method that would allow them to insert hormones into the corals and monitor how they affected the calcification process.

“The major benefits of this injection method are that we can accurately inject the same concentration of hormones each time, and that we can trace where it is going inside the organism,” says Ms Forin. “We needed to make sure that all the hormones made it to the cells of interest and that soluble hormones wouldn’t be lost in the surrounding seawater.”

After screening many different widely available human hormones for pro-calcification effects, they identified a prime candidate in thyroxine. In humans and other vertebrates, thyroxine contributes to a variety of important functions such as growth and metabolism and has been associated with calcium transport.

“We found that thyroxine had a positive effect on the coral’s calcification process,” says Ms Forin. Using an ELISA (Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay), they were able to detect and quantify the hormone’s processing and activity within the coral.

This finding raises interesting questions about the evolution of animal physiology. “If the coral is able to process and use the thyroxine, then it means that specific metabolic pathways have been conserved,” says Ms Forin. “The big question now is how these corals utilise thyroxine in their natural habitat.”

This research is being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Antwerp, Belgium on the 9th July 2025.

FAU Harbor Branch receives $1M grant to study gulf’s mesophotic coral habitats

Florida Atlantic University

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video: 

The animation shows surface chlorophyll concentrations – comparable to fluorescence – generated by a research model that simulates both ocean physics (such as currents, temperature and salinity) and biogeochemical processes (including nutrient cycling, algal growth and mortality). It covers the period from August 1 to Sept. 30, 2011. Chlorophyll levels change over time and are carried by ocean currents, though the currents themselves are not directly depicted in the animation.

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Credit: FAU Harbor Branch

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) are important coral ecosystems found between 30 and 150 meters deep in oceans worldwide including the Gulf of America. They support diverse marine life and important fisheries but remain poorly understood. Unlike shallow reefs, MCEs depend on nutrients from the deep ocean from upwelling or river plumes, like those from the Mississippi and Apalachicola rivers. These nutrient flows support growth of marine phytoplankton (i.e. tiny floating algae), which is an important source of organic matter (food) that sustains the corals and other marine species.

However, scientists have limited knowledge of the food sources and the processes that sustain them on the West Florida Shelf, particularly on the southern portion of the shelf, which lies largely beyond the influence of river plumes.

Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute has received a $999,664 grant from the Florida RESTORE Act Centers of Excellence Program (FLRACEP) for a three-year project titled, “Influences of Upwelling and Riverine Nutrient Plumes on the Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems of the West Florida Shelf.”

FLRACEP is a state-led initiative that funds research to support the long-term health and sustainability of Florida’s Gulf Coast. Created in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and funded by the RESTORE Act, the program is managed by the Florida Institute of Oceanography. It supports collaborative projects among top scientists and institutions, focusing on ecosystem restoration, fisheries, coastal resilience and offshore energy safety. The goal is to provide science-based solutions that guide environmental protection and sustainable growth in the gulf region.

The FAU project seeks to understand how ocean currents and nutrients from land influence the health and productivity of MCEs along the edge of the West Florida Shelf, which is home to one of the largest MCEs in the gulf. These deep coral habitats are built on exposed rocky seafloor and support vibrant communities of corals, sponges and fish – many of which are economically important and rely on these areas for spawning. While a few protected areas have been established to safeguard these fish populations, much of the West Florida Shelf remains open to fishing, and large areas have yet to be fully explored or mapped.

The project team, spearheaded by Mingshun Jiang, Ph.D., principal investigator and an associate research professor at FAU Harbor Branch, includes researchers from Florida State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. The team will identify areas of high ecological value and describe the benthic communities.

Through four research cruises, scientists will study both nutrient-rich sites in the north and nutrient-poor areas in the south. The team will use underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles to capture images and collect samples of corals, plankton and sediments. A suite of instruments will be deployed to measure currents, nutrients and sediment parameters including nutrient supplies from the sediment. At the same time, a novel imaging system called AUTOHOLO, developed by FAU Harbor Branch researchers, will be deployed to document plankton communities over the MCEs.

Researchers also will place instruments on the seafloor to document seasonal environmental conditions including temperature, currents, nutrients, dissolved oxygen and pH. All this information will be used to develop a computer model at FAU Harbor Branch that provides a broad picture of environmental conditions and fish larval transport.

“The mesophotic coral ecosystems along the West Florida Shelf are some of the gulf’s most valuable yet least understood habitats,” said Jiang. “Our goal is to uncover how ocean currents and nutrient flows sustain these valuable ecosystems and the marine life they support. These systems are influenced by complex physical and biological processes, and many questions remain about how food reaches these depths and how it varies across the shelf. By filling these critical knowledge gaps, our research will contribute to science-based management – helping protect these ecosystems and the fisheries that depend on them, especially in the face of environmental change.”

This project will generate a detailed dataset on ocean conditions, water movement, and marine life across key mesophotic coral sites, including areas near features like De Soto Canyon. Researchers will map seafloor habitats and compare reef health in areas with different levels of nutrient availability. The study will also shed light on what drives upwelling, where nutrients and organic matter come from and how they reach the reefs. By examining specific water layers above the MCEs, the team will better understand the conditions that shape these ecosystems.

The project team will work closely with NOAA scientists to study how fish larvae disperse, including economically important species like gag (Mycteroperca microlepis) and red grouper (Epinephelus morio), which are heavily fished and vulnerable to environmental problems like red tides. Data will also be collected on the distribution of other less-studied fish associated with the MCEs that are caught as fisheries bycatch. Data collected from this project will be shared with NOAA scientists who also study MCEs in the gulf.

“By delivering the kind of high-quality, interdisciplinary science that’s been missing for these coral ecosystems, this project will directly support enhanced management and stronger protection of mesophotic habitats in the gulf,” said James M. Sullivan, Ph.D., executive director of FAU Harbor Branch. “The data gathered will not only fill major knowledge gaps but also give managers the tools they need to make informed decisions – from designing conservation strategies to identifying new marine protected areas. These ecosystems support valuable fisheries and biodiversity, and outcomes from this project will help ensure their resilience for the future.”

Co-principal investigators of the project are Jordon Beckler, Ph.D., an associate research professor at FAU Harbor Branch; Aditya R. Nayak, Ph.D., an associate professor, Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering within FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science and a research scientist at FAU Harbor Branch; Sandra Brooke, Ph.D., research faculty, Coastal and Marine Laboratory, FSU; and Steven Morey, Ph.D., a professor of environmental sciences at FAMU

- FAU -

Deep coral ecosystems [VIDEO] 

Mesophotic coral and crinoids on Bright Bank, Florida Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. 

Credit

Marine Applied Research and Exploration, NOAA

A mesophotic reef in the northern gulf shwoing diverse soft corals. 

Credit

National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, NOAA

About Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute:
Founded in 1971, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University is a research community of marine scientists, engineers, educators, and other professionals focused on Ocean Science for a Better World. The institute drives innovation in ocean engineering, at-sea operations, drug discovery and biotechnology from the oceans, coastal ecology and conservation, marine mammal research and conservation, aquaculture, ocean observing systems and marine education. For more information, visit www.fau.edu/hboi.

 

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, Florida Atlantic serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the Southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, Florida Atlantic embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. Florida Atlantic is designated as a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report, and holds the designation of “R1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production” by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Florida Atlantic shares this status with less than 5% of the nearly 4,000 universities in the United States. For more information, visit www.fau.edu

New catalyst enables triple-efficiency decomposition of ammonia for clean hydrogen

Developed a polyol process-based ruthenium catalyst synthesis method with ammonia decomposition performance three times higher than conventional catalysts

National Research Council of Science & Technology


Group photo of the research team (from left Dr. Unho Jung, Dr. Kee Young Koo, Dr. Byeong-Seon An, Dr. Yongha Park)view more
Credit: KOREA INSTITUTE OF ENERGY RESEARCH(KIER)

A research team led by Dr. Kee Young Koo from the Hydrogen Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (President: Yi Chang-Keun, hereafter referred to as KIER) has developed a novel and more cost-effective method for synthesizing ammonia decomposition catalysts. This new approach enables more efficient hydrogen production from ammonia and is expected to make a significant contribution to the realization of a hydrogen economy.

Composed of three hydrogen atoms and one nitrogen atom, ammonia has a high hydrogen content, making it a promising hydrogen carrier for long-distance transport and large-scale storage. With global infrastructure for its transport and storage already in place, ammonia offers a more economical means of hydrogen delivery compared to other carriers. However, the technology for decomposing ammonia to produce hydrogen at the point of demand is still in the early stages of development.

The core of this technology lies in the use of ruthenium (Ru) catalysts. Ruthenium enables rapid ammonia decomposition at lower temperatures—between 500°C and 600°C—which is over 100°C lower than that required by other catalysts. The challenge, however, is that ruthenium is an extremely rare metal found in only a few countries, making it difficult to procure.

Until now, ruthenium has been used in nanoscale form to maximize performance even in small quantities. However, the large-scale production of nanocatalysts involves complex processes and high manufacturing costs, which hinder the commercialization of ammonia decomposition technology.

In response, the research team developed a novel ruthenium catalyst synthesis method based on the polyol process, aimed at improving the economic viability of the catalyst. The catalyst produced through this method demonstrated more than three times higher ammonia decomposition performance compared to conventional catalysts.

The polyol* process applied by the research team is commonly used to synthesize metals into nanoparticles. In conventional processes, capping agents are added to prevent the particles from clumping together, but this makes the process more complex and increases costs. To address this, the team devised a method to control nanoparticle aggregation without the use of capping agents.


* Polyol: A viscous, sticky liquid alcohol containing multiple –OH (hydroxyl) groups, commonly used in processes that reduce metals into nanoparticles. Representative examples include ethylene glycol, glycerol, and butylene glycol.


The research team focused on the fact that the length of organic molecules known as carbon chains affects the degree of particle aggregation. They hypothesized that by controlling the structure and length of these carbon chains, nanoparticle aggregation could be effectively suppressed without the need for additives.


* Carbon chain: A structure in which carbon atoms are bonded together; its length varies depending on the number of carbon atoms contained in the molecule.


Through experiments, the research team confirmed that using butylene glycol, which has a long carbon chain, allowed 2.5nm sized ruthenium particles to be uniformly dispersed without the need for capping agents. They also verified the formation of 'B5 sites'*—the active sites where hydrogen production reactions occur.


* B5 site: A highly reactive structural site where three ruthenium atoms are positioned on a stepped surface, with two additional atoms located on the terrace edge above them, facilitating enhanced catalytic activity.




The resulting catalyst significantly outperformed existing catalysts. Compared to conventional ruthenium catalysts that did not use butylene glycol, the activation energy* was reduced by approximately 20%, and the hydrogen formation rate increased by 1.7 times. Furthermore, when comparing ammonia decomposition performance per unit volume, the catalyst demonstrated more than three times higher efficiency than those produced using conventional synthesis methods, highlighting its excellent economic potential.**


* Activation energy: The minimum amount of energy required for a chemical reaction to occur, expressed in kJ·mol⁻¹ (kilojoules needed per mole of molecules for the hydrogen production reaction). The catalyst developed by the research team showed an activation energy of 49.8 kJ·mol⁻¹.

** Hydrogen formation rate: In this study, it is measured in mmolH₂·gcat⁻¹·h⁻¹, which indicates the amount of hydrogen produced per gram of catalyst per hour. The catalyst developed by the research team achieved a hydrogen formation rate of 1,236 mmolH₂·gcat⁻¹·h⁻¹.


Dr. Kee Young Koo, the lead researcher, stated, “The ammonia decomposition catalyst synthesis technology developed in this study is a practical solution to overcome the limitations and cost issues associated with mass production of conventional nanocatalysts. It is expected to contribute to the localization and commercialization of ammonia decomposition catalyst technology.” She added, “We plan to move forward with performance verification through mass production of pellet-type catalysts and application in various ammonia cracking systems.”

This achievement was published as a cover paper in Small (Impact Factor 12.1), a prestigious journal in the field of nanotechnology, and was carried out with support from the Global Top Strategic Research Program of the National Research Council of Science & Technology, under the Ministry of Science and ICT.


* Paper Information: https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202407338

(Published on April 23, 2025 / Selected for the Inside Front Cover)

[Photo 2] Dr. Kee Young Koo conducting a catalyst synthesis experiment using the newly developed technology

The catalyst developed by the research team (left powder form, right pellet form)

Credit

KOREA INSTITUTE OF ENERGY RESEARCH(KIER)

Journal

Small

DOI

10.1002/smll.202407338

Article Title

Polyol-Intermediated Facile Synthesis of B5-Site-Rich Ru-Based Nanocatalysts for COx-Free Hydrogen Production via Ammonia Decomposition