CAREER: Oxygen Reduction Catalysis at Tunable Metal Sulfide Nanofilms

太阳能和风能等可再生能源在满足未来日益增长的能源需求方面将发挥越来越大的作用。然而，这些能源是间歇性的，在没有阳光或风的情况下拥有可靠的能源需要以能量密集的形式存储，如化学燃料。然后，燃料能量可以被释放出来，在燃料电池中按需发电。目前，燃料电池价格昂贵且不可持续，因为将燃料转化为电能所需的铂基催化剂成本高且稀缺。该项目旨在开发低成本、无毒、富含地球的催化剂，以取代未来燃料电池中的铂。这项工作将允许研究生、本科生和博士后研究员学习可再生能源科学的现代化学技术，并合作发现新的催化剂。这项研究工作还将与一项基础广泛的推广工作-催化剂基因组计划相结合，该计划将允许所有年龄段的业余研究人员发现、评估和合作寻找用于可再生能源存储的新催化剂。通过这一奖项，化学部化学催化计划资助麻省理工学院的约格什·苏伦德拉纳特博士系统地研究晚过渡金属硫化物(MSX)纳米薄膜电催化剂介导的氧还原反应(ORR)。后过渡金属硫化物(LTM)是一类具有吸引力的低成本、富含稀土的低温燃料电池阴极ORR催化剂，但由于缺乏对机理的了解和基本设计原则，其开发和优化一直受到阻碍。该项目将利用最近开发的逐层化学电沉积方法来制备纳米厚的晶态LTMS薄膜，以探索ORR在这些材料上的活性位结构和机理。从这些研究中，这项工作旨在提取广泛的周期性趋势和总体设计原则，用于合成高性能纳米颗粒LTMS ORR催化剂，为集成到先进的燃料电池阴极做好准备

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will play an increasing role in meeting the growing energy demands of the future. However, these sources are intermittent, having reliable energy when the sun doesn't shine or wind doesn't blow requires storage in an energy dense form such as a chemical fuel. The fuel energy can then be released to produce electricity on demand in a fuel cell. Currently, fuel cells are expensive and unsustainable due to the high cost and scarcity of the platinum-based catalysts needed to convert fuel to electricity. This project aims to develop low-cost, non-toxic, earth-abundant catalysts to replace platinum in future fuel cells. The work will allow graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows to learn the modern techniques in chemistry for renewable energy science and to collaborate to discover new catalysts. The research work will also be integrated with a broad-based outreach effort, The Catalyst Genome Project, which will allow amateur researchers of all ages to discover, evaluate, and collaborate in the search for new catalysts for renewable energy storage.With this award, the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Chemistry Division is funding Dr. Yogesh Surendranath of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to systematically investigate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mediated by late transition metal sulfide (MSx where M = Ni, Co, Fe) nanofilm electrocatalysts. Late transition metal sulfides (LTMSs) represent an attractive class of low-cost, earth-abundant ORR catalysts for low-temperature fuel cell cathodes but their development and optimization have been hampered by a lack of mechanistic understanding and an absence of fundamental design principles. The project will utilize a recently developed layer-by-layer chemical electrodeposition method for preparing nanometer-thick crystalline LTMS films to probe the active site structure and mechanism of ORR on these materials. From these studies, the work aims to extract broad periodic trends and overarching design principles that will be used to synthesize high-performance nanoparticulate LTMS ORR catalysts primed for integration into advanced fuel cell cathodes