High Throughput Experiments to Determine Structure-Performance Relationships for Oxide Photocatalysts

非技术描述：通过太阳能裂解水生产氢燃料是一项可持续的技术，可以用来减少我们对化石燃料的依赖。然而，这项技术受到材料的限制，因为目前可用的裂水催化剂无法以与化石能源具有竞争力的成本生产氢气。发现改进催化剂的科学进程在一定程度上受到了实验速度的阻碍。这项研究采用了一种新技术，可以测量100多种不同催化剂同时放氢的速度，有效地将测量次数增加了100倍。这项测量技术使系统地探索材料的特性与其产氢速率之间的关系成为可能，从而确定改进的水分解催化剂。该项目还使用非正式科学教育活动中的技术演示，并教育准备在可再生能源行业工作的本科生和研究生。技术细节：该项目的目标是利用实验测量的结构-性能关系设计改进的氧化物水分解催化剂。催化剂的性能取决于与材料的组成、加工和结构有关的许多参数，以及反应器中的条件。这些实验利用了新开发的并行自动化光化学反应器，使其能够在一次实验中测量多达108个催化剂的氢产率，系统地确定颗粒形状、颗粒大小、掺杂剂、带电表面域、保护涂层、助催化剂和许多其他催化剂特性对氢产率的影响。这些实验建立了一个数据库，其中包括数千种以锶、钡、铅和钛酸铁为基础的催化材料以及这些化合物的一些固溶体的校准产氢率。根据这些数据建立的结构-性能关系是开发改进催化剂的基础。这些催化剂的重要性在于，它们可以用来生产一种可持续的太阳能燃料，其燃烧不会对大气造成二氧化碳。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: The production of hydrogen fuel by solar water splitting is a sustainable technology that could be used to decrease our reliance on fossil fuels. However, the technology is materials limited because currently available water splitting catalysts cannot produce hydrogen at a cost that is competitive with fossil energy sources. The scientific process for discovering improved catalysts has been hindered in part by the pace of experimentation. This research employs a new technique that makes it possible to measure the rates at which more than 100 different catalysts evolve hydrogen at the same time, effectively increasing the number of measurements that can be made by a factor of 100. This measurement technique makes it possible to systematically explore the relationships between the characteristics of a material and the rate at which it produces hydrogen and, therefore, identify improved water splitting catalysts. The project also uses demonstrations of the technology for informal science education events and educates undergraduate and graduate students who are prepared to work in the renewable energy industry.TECHNICAL DETAILS: The goal of this project is to design improved oxide water splitting catalysts using experimentally measured structure-performance relationships. Catalyst performance depends on many parameters related to the composition, processing, and structure of the material, as well as the conditions in the reactor. The experiments leverage a newly developed parallel and automated photochemical reactor that makes it possible to measure the hydrogen yield from up to 108 catalysts in a single experiment, systematically determining the influence of particle shape, particle size, dopants, charged surface domains, protective coatings, co-catalysts, and many other catalyst characteristics on the hydrogen production rate. The experiments produce a database of calibrated hydrogen production rates from thousands of catalytic materials based on strontium, barium, lead, and iron titanate, as well as some solid solutions of these compounds. The structure-performance relationships developed from these data are the basis for the development of improved catalysts. The importance of these catalysts is that they can be used to produce a sustainable solar fuel whose combustion does not contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.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.