Chemisorption System for the Development of Nanostructured Catalysts for Environmental and Energy Applications

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Emerging catalytic materials have the potential to revolutionize the energy sector by enabling the commercialization of renewable energy conversion and waste utilization. For example, hydrogen can be generated by water splitting using solar and wind energy and reacted with CO2 to generate renewable synthetic fuels. Commercial low-cost catalysts are not suitable for CO2 conversion because of low activity and rapid deactivation. Catalysts based on noble metals are highly-active and stable but expensive, which reduces their economic viability. Novel catalysts based on emerging materials (e.g., carbides, nitrides, graphene) and nano-structuring (e.g., nanotubes, nanorods, core-shell nanoparticles) can provide superior catalytic properties, while being cost-effective at the same time. The development of a new generation of catalysts requires a detailed characterization of the material surface, because in heterogeneous catalysis, reactions occur at the interface between the catalytic surface and the reactant phase. The technique used for this type of analysis is chemisorption, which, unlike physisorption, involves a chemical reaction between the gaseous adsorbate and the surface site. The requested Chemisorption System is a high-performance, fully-automated analyzer for the quantification and characterization of catalytically-active surfaces. The system uses various adsorptives, including H2, CO, O2, and NH3, and is suitable for the characterization of a large variety of catalytic materials. The requested system, which is currently unavailable at the UW campus or in its vicinity, will enable the establishment of a multidisciplinary, collaborative program on advanced heterogeneous catalysis. This proposal is submitted by five faculty members; as such, we expect at least 10 PhD and >20 MASc students to be trained on the system over the first 5 years. HQP will gain catalyst characterization skills, which are in high demand in various industries, including oil and gas sector, as well as advanced technologies such as fuel cells. The system will be intensively used to characterize newly designed materials, providing important insights into the fundamental understanding of mechanisms of catalytic reactions. The data obtained will support or refute theoretical predictions, providing feedback to experimental work, and will ultimately guide further research towards the development of commercially viable catalytic materials. Research activities will focus on the development of emerging nanostructured materials for applications in three fields: thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis. We expect that research outcomes will advance energy conversion and waste utilization technologies; this will translate into positive impacts on Canada’s economy, as such technologies belong to a rapidly growing field of Clean Energy.