Chemical Engineering Seminar

   Chemical transformations are ubiquitous in the modern, global-scale energy economy.  The ability to catalyze chemical reactions efficiently will continue to be critically important as we aim to enable a future energy economy based on renewable, sustainable resources.

   This talk will focus on our efforts to develop catalytic materials for ambient-temperature, ambient-pressure processes involving the electron-driven production and consumption of fuels and chemicals, reactions that could play key roles for future energy technologies.  More specifically, this talk will address catalyst development for electrocatalytic H₂ generation from water and the synthesis of hydrocarbons and alcohols from CO₂.  If coupled to renewable sources of electricity (e.g. wind and solar), these two reactions could produce important fuels and industrial chemicals in a sustainable manner, avoiding fossil resources.  I will also discuss recent efforts to develop improved catalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), a major challenge in developing more efficient fuel cells and metal-air batteries.

   Common catalyst materials for these three reactions face challenges in terms of activity, selectivity, stability, and/or cost and earth-abundance.  This talk will describe approaches used in our research group to understand the governing principles guiding the reaction chemistry, as well as strategies to tailor the surface chemistry of materials through control of morphology, stoichiometry, and surface structure at the nano- and atomic-scale in order to overcome performance barriers in catalyzing these reactions.  Critical to the development of improved catalysts is fundamental understanding as to the characteristics that govern reaction turnover at the molecular scale.  This talk will focus on the importance of combining theory and experiment in establishing design principles for these reactions, as well as integrating these principles into new catalyst materials.