CAREER: Oxygen Reduction Catalysis at Tunable Metal Sulfide Nanofilms

太阳能和风能等可再生能源将在满足未来不断增长的能源需求方面发挥越来越大的作用。然而，这些能源是间歇性的，当太阳不发光或风不吹时，需要以能量密集的形式储存可靠的能量，如化学燃料。然后，燃料能量可以被释放以在燃料电池中按需产生电力。目前，由于将燃料转化为电力所需的铂基催化剂成本高且稀缺，燃料电池价格昂贵且不可持续。该项目旨在开发低成本，无毒，地球丰富的催化剂，以取代未来燃料电池中的铂。这项工作将使研究生、本科生和博士后研究员能够学习可再生能源科学的现代化学技术，并合作发现新的催化剂。这项研究工作还将与一项基础广泛的推广工作“催化剂基因组计划”相结合，该计划将允许所有年龄段的业余研究人员发现、评估和合作寻找可再生能源储存的新催化剂。化学部的化学催化项目正在资助马萨诸塞州理工学院的Yogesh Surendranath博士系统地研究氧气还原反应（ORR）介导的后过渡金属硫化物（MSx，其中M = Ni，Co，Fe）纳米膜电催化剂。后过渡金属硫化物（LTMS）代表了一类有吸引力的低成本，地球丰富的ORR催化剂的低温燃料电池阴极，但他们的发展和优化受到阻碍的缺乏机制的理解和缺乏基本的设计原则。该项目将利用最近开发的逐层化学电沉积方法制备纳米厚的结晶LTMS薄膜，以探测这些材料上的活性位点结构和ORR机制。从这些研究中，这项工作的目的是提取广泛的周期性趋势和总体设计原则，这些原则将用于合成高性能纳米颗粒LTMS ORR催化剂，以集成到先进的燃料电池阴极中

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will play an increasing role in meeting the growing energy demands of the future. However, these sources are intermittent, having reliable energy when the sun doesn't shine or wind doesn't blow requires storage in an energy dense form such as a chemical fuel. The fuel energy can then be released to produce electricity on demand in a fuel cell. Currently, fuel cells are expensive and unsustainable due to the high cost and scarcity of the platinum-based catalysts needed to convert fuel to electricity. This project aims to develop low-cost, non-toxic, earth-abundant catalysts to replace platinum in future fuel cells. The work will allow graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows to learn the modern techniques in chemistry for renewable energy science and to collaborate to discover new catalysts. The research work will also be integrated with a broad-based outreach effort, The Catalyst Genome Project, which will allow amateur researchers of all ages to discover, evaluate, and collaborate in the search for new catalysts for renewable energy storage.With this award, the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Chemistry Division is funding Dr. Yogesh Surendranath of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to systematically investigate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mediated by late transition metal sulfide (MSx where M = Ni, Co, Fe) nanofilm electrocatalysts. Late transition metal sulfides (LTMSs) represent an attractive class of low-cost, earth-abundant ORR catalysts for low-temperature fuel cell cathodes but their development and optimization have been hampered by a lack of mechanistic understanding and an absence of fundamental design principles. The project will utilize a recently developed layer-by-layer chemical electrodeposition method for preparing nanometer-thick crystalline LTMS films to probe the active site structure and mechanism of ORR on these materials. From these studies, the work aims to extract broad periodic trends and overarching design principles that will be used to synthesize high-performance nanoparticulate LTMS ORR catalysts primed for integration into advanced fuel cell cathodes