In laboratories, chemists are accustomed to considering reactions on catalyst surfaces as a classical process: molecules collide, exchange electrons, and form new substances. However, a new joint work by scientists from the University of Nottingham and Harvard calls this simplification into question.
Professor Gerardo Adesso from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Nottingham, together with colleagues Melissa Mather and Anabel Lanterna, has received funding under a joint program of UKRI and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The American side is led by Professors Junho Lee and Xuyang Xu. The total budget of the project "Entanglement Witness of Heterogeneous Surface Reactions" will be about 550 thousand pounds for Nottingham and 700 thousand dollars for Harvard. The research will last three years starting from October 2026.
Quantum entanglement is a state in which the properties of particles remain connected even at a distance. Under ordinary conditions, the environment quickly destroys such correlations, and chemists describe reactions without accounting for quantum effects. The team will test whether entanglement persists in real heterogeneous surface reactions and whether it influences their course.
To do this, the scientists will combine three approaches: nanoscale quantum sensing using nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond, quantum information theory methods to confirm entanglement, and first-principles calculations of open quantum systems. If the correlations turn out to be truly quantum rather than classical, this will change the understanding of catalysis.
The results could lead to the creation of new tools for studying catalytic and magnetic materials. In the future, this will open pathways to more efficient processes in photocatalysis, energy conversion, and quantum technologies that already influence fertilizer production, exhaust gas cleaning, and the development of solar cells.
The project will also strengthen cooperation between the UK and the USA, supporting postdocs in mathematical and chemical sciences. Experiments and simulations will be conducted in parallel in both countries, accelerating the testing of hypotheses.
If entanglement indeed participates in chemical transformations, conventional descriptions of reactions will require serious revision.
