CAREER: Rational Design of Defect-Ordered Architectures in Oxygen-Deficient Perovskites to Control the Oxygen-Evolution Activity

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NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:Discovery of new materials that can be used in energy-related processes and devices has a major impact on the future of global energy landscape, prosperity and welfare. For example, new materials with specific properties are needed to better facilitate splitting of water into its basic components, which is important for the generation of hydrogen and oxygen from renewable sources. A similarly important property is the conduction of charges in certain solid materials, a phenomenon that is essential to many energy devices such as batteries and fuel cells. Studying fundamental aspects of these properties is at the center of this CAREER award. The award is jointly supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program in the Division of Materials Research, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Chemical Catalysis Program in the Division of Chemistry. Under this award the research group of Prof. Ramezanipour develops guidelines for rational design of functional materials, where important energy-related properties are controlled and modified by changing the arrangements of atoms within the compounds. This project advances fundamental understanding of functional materials and results in discovery of novel compounds that contribute to the progress of science and technology in the field of energy-related applications. In addition, as part of this award an educational plan helps students to enhance their laboratory skills, facilitates their academic success, and prepares them for potential careers in areas that require expertise in a laboratory setting. Furthermore, outreach activities for underrepresented minority students introduce these students to basic research, increase the scientific literacy, and spark interest in chemistry. These outreach activities, and an internship program for female students to participate in hands-on research, broaden the impact of the project and help increase diversity in STEM fields.TECHNICAL SUMMARY:With this CAREER award, jointly supported by the Solid State and Materials Chemistry program in the Division of Materials Research, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and the Chemical Catalysis Program in the Division of Chemistry, researchers work to uncover the fundamental parameters that allow for rational design and synthesis of defect-ordered architectures and the impact of defect-arrangement on functional properties, in particular the charge-transport and oxygen-evolution activity. The specific focus is on design and synthesis of defect-ordered oxygen-deficient perovskites, which have recently shown outstanding electrocatalytic activity for oxygen-evolution reaction (OER) of water splitting. Until now the fundamental structure-property relationships that control their OER activity have remained largely unexplored. The key characteristic of this class of materials is the presence of defects, created due to oxygen-deficiency. Various arrangements of defects lead to different types of ordered structures. Here Prof. Ramezanipour and his group investigate how the arrangement and ordering of defects can be controlled and explore the role of defect-arrangement in directing the OER activity of oxygen-deficient perovskites. In addition, they investigate the relationship between defect-arrangement and charge-transport, which is another property that affects the OER activity. Overall, the multifaceted and comprehensive approach involves material design, synthesis and study of the changes in structural order, valence-state, electronic structure, charge-transport, and the impact these parameters have on OER properties.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.