The study of surface reactions under dynamic conditions

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This research seeks deeper understanding of key chemical reactions which occur on the surfaces of catalysts and electrocatalysts. These reactions lie at the heart of attractive alternate energy conversion technologies and currently constitute a major barrier to their use. Greater energy efficiency and flexibility combined with lower environmental impact requires improvements in the basic chemistry - which we hope will result from the understanding gained in this work. The processes include the use of hydrogen as an energy "currency" by improving our ability to make methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, thus "storing" hydrogen chemically and providing safer transport and storage as well as being a useful fuel in this form. Also addressed are the surface reactions at the electrodes in fuel cells, particularly the activation of oxygen. This simple reaction is a major barrier to the widespread introduction of fuel cells for distributed power generation, including automobiles. A third target lies at the heart of processes to efficiently convert waste carbonaceous material to clean, high value natural gas. The increased understanding in the fundamental mechanisms of these reactions should enable improvements to these attractive technologies. In this program,advanced analytical techniques, recently available will be used to observe the details of the surface chemistry involved and provide this understanding.