Nanomanufacturing of Hierarchical Metallic Glasses as High-performance Electrocatalysts

在燃料电池和电池等与能源相关的技术中，迫切需要高性能的催化剂，以满足全球日益增长的能源需求，减少对化石燃料的依赖。能量存储和转换设备中的催化剂促进关键的电化学反应，这些反应决定了它们的效率、耐用性和成本。这些应用大多要求催化剂具有较大的比表面积，并配以合适的化学成分来促进反应动力学。尽管在各个层面都取得了进展，但还缺乏一种能够满足高催化活性、耐用性和成本效益的必要要求的通用纳米制造技术。该奖项将研究一种用于能量转换和存储应用的金属纳米结构催化剂的新范例。除了基础研究，还将制定一项教育计划，为研究生、本科生和高中生提供培训和研究机会。将特别努力鼓励妇女和代表性不足的少数民族学生参与研究，这将提高他们在科学和工程领域的留存率。概念、理论和成果将用于加强现有的和创建新的本科生和研究生水平的课程。该项目的成功将为燃料电池、电池和水分离系统等清洁能源转换和存储技术中可扩展的金属-玻璃催化剂的纳米制造提供一种变革性的方法。本研究的目的是研究金属玻璃纳米结构的催化活性的基本机理，并为用于能量转换和存储技术的高性能非晶态催化剂的纳米制造提供可扩展的低成本方法。金属玻璃因其亚稳态结构、化学可调谐以及可广泛应用于多种成分而成为高性能电催化剂的研究热点。尽管金属玻璃具有这些独特的特性，但由于生产高质量催化剂的能力有限，其应用一直受到阻碍。这项研究将开发一种新的工艺，将传统金属直接转化为高性能的分级纳米催化剂。此外，还将利用第一性原理方法对金属玻璃的表面形态和化学结构及其对催化活性的影响进行模拟。将实验和计算相结合来确定电催化活性，将加快寻找最佳金属玻璃催化剂的速度，有助于更好地了解催化现象，并揭示新的反应机理。

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.