Solar Fuels Catalysis: From Molecules to Nanomaterials
Moments in Materials Seminar
Presented by Dr. Nick Orchanian, Nuckolls Group
Solar irradiation offers a clean, renewable, and distributed source of energy to power our planet. While this energy is abundantly available, the spatio-temporal variability of sunlight poses challenges in developing a predominantly solar-based grid. As such, new technologies are required to increase grid-scale energy storage capacity. One promising avenue for energy storage is the production of chemical fuels and feedstocks through catalysis. By coupling catalytic systems to photovoltaic arrays, excess solar electricity could be channeled into large-scale electrolyzers during times of low-energy demand and the resulting “solar fuels” could be stored for peak-demand hours. In this talk, I will discuss efforts to incorporate bipyridine-based molecular catalysts into one-dimensional nanowires through a surface-localized electropolymerization methodology. The resulting electroactive films exhibit high activity and selectivity for the electrocatalytic and photocatalytic conversion of CO2 to CO. As numerous metal-bipyridine complexes are known for a broad scope of electrocatalytic transformations, these integrated devices are anticipated to serve as a platform for future studies.
Thursday August 5, 2021 at 4:30pm
Room 320 Havemeyer
