Designing Nanostructured Catalytic Materials for Promoting Renewable Energy Conversion Reactions

Abstract

“Hydrogen economy” is considered as a long-term solution for securing our energy future. A kry element for realizing this compelling vision is the development of highly active, durable, and low-cost electrocatalysts for energy conversion reactions, such as fuel cells and electrolyzers. Our group has designed and prepared new electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction, H2O2 production, oxygen evolution reaction, chlorine evolution reaction, and hydrogen evolution reaction through the understanding of active sites for enhancing their activity, selectivity, and durability. In this talk, I will present our recent efforts toward designing nanostructured electrocatalysts based on low-precious metal, non-precious metal, and carbon-based compositions. I also present our endeavor for identifying catalytically active sites in these electrocatalysts by in situ spectroscopic and computational methods, and applying the developed electrocatalysts in system-level devices.