Combined high-throughput spectroscopic and modeling approach to the study of heterogeneous catalysts

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In the field of material science, the vast array of possible compositions, structures, and formulations leads to a very high complexity, which has often kept researchers from predicting material behavior based on the formulation and, even more importantly, from designing better materials. The advent of high-throughput technologies has made a large impact in the past few years, accelerating the discovery of novel catalytic materials through new kinds of rapid experimentation. The goal of this research is to employ FTIR imaging as a truly parallel, high throughput, chemically sensitive analytical technique in conjunction with molecular-level and reactor scale modeling to gain insight into the nanoscale behavior of catalyst systems. The modeling approach will specifically be tailored towards accepting information from high throughput experimentation, creating a synergy between experiments and modeling. This work is aimed at the collection of high information content data in a parallel fashion in order to gain scientific knowledge about NOx storage and reduction catalysts for automotive exhaust aftertreatment and direct ammonia decomposition catalysts for onboard generation of hydrogen for mobile fuel cell applications.This program will train students in the concept of this novel approach to research, development of novel experimental analytical techniques, the design of experiments, and data modeling on various length scales.