Special Seminar
đź“… Friday, October 13, 2023 1 pm
đź“Ś WSI, Seminar room S 101
Prof. Song Jin
Francis J. DiSalvo Professor of Physical Science
Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison USA
on the subject
“Efficient and selective electrocatalytic conversion of chemicals and fuels”
Abstract:
Due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, practical large scale
renewable energy utilization demands both efficient energy conversion and large scale
energy storage. Highly active and selective electrocatalysts are needed to enable efficient
and sustainable production of fuels (such as hydrogen) and valuable chemicals via
electrocatalytic processes. We control the phase, defects, doping, and electronic structures
of (earth-abundant) electrocatalysts for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and
oxygen evolution (OER) for water splitting. Our recent efforts include enhancing the oxygen
evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activity and stability of metal oxides in acids through
controlling Co3O4/CeO2 nanostructures and structural defects due to torsional strain of
mesoporous iridium oxide nanoparticles and providing new mechanistic insights by
combined electrochemical and in situ structural characterizations. We have combined
computations and experiments to develop metal compounds as selective catalysts for twoelectron
oxygen reduction reaction (2e- ORR) to produce hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the
subsequent electro-Fenton process for upgrading biomass molecules. Furthermore,
because the tight coupling between paired electrochemical half-reactions requires identical
reaction conditions and constrains the products and efficiency, we recently developed
modular electrochemical synthesis (ModES) using redox reservoirs, which are solid energystorage
materials that can store/release electrons and desired ions, to improve energy
efficiency and reduce waste by pairing multiple independent electrochemical half-reactions.