Nanomanufacturing of Hierarchical Metallic Glasses as High-performance Electrocatalysts

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There is a strong need for high performance catalysts in energy-related technologies such as fuel cells and batteries to meet the growing energy demands across the globe and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Catalysts in energy storage and conversion devices promote the key electrochemical reactions that determine their efficiency, durability and cost. Most of these applications require that the catalysts have large surface area paired with suitable chemistry to facilitate the reaction kinetics. Despite progress at various levels, a versatile nanomanufacturing technology that can meet the necessary requirements of high catalytic activity, durability and cost effectiveness is lacking. This award will investigate a new paradigm of metallic nanostructure catalysts for use in a number of energy conversion and storage applications. Together with the basic research, an education program will be developed to provide training and research opportunities to graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students. Special efforts will be made to encourage women and under-represented minority students to participate in the research, which will improve their retention in science and engineering. The concept, theory, and results will be used in strengthening existing and creating new undergraduate and graduate level courses. The success of this project will provide a transformative approach for scalable nanomanufacturing of metallic-glass catalysts for clean energy conversion and storage technologies such as fuel cells, batteries, and water splitting systems.The objectives of this research are to study fundamental mechanisms of catalytic activity for metallic glass nanostructures, and to create scalable and low-cost approaches for nanomanufacturing high-performance amorphous catalysts for energy conversion and storage technologies. Metallic-glasses are attractive as high-performance electrocatalysts because of their metastable structure, tunable chemistry, and availability in a wide range of compositions. Despite these unique attributes, the application of metallic glasses has been impeded by the limited ability to produce high-quality catalysts. This research will develop a novel process that directly transforms conventional metals into high-performance hierarchical nanocatalysts. In addition, simulations of the metallic-glass surface morphology and chemistry and their effect on catalytic activity will be carried out using first-principles methods. The integration of experiment and computation to determine electro-catalytic activity will speed up the search for the best metallic glass catalysts, provide better understanding of the catalytic phenomena, and uncover new reaction mechanisms.