Nanomanufacturing of Hierarchical Metallic Glasses as High-performance Electrocatalysts

在能源相关技术如燃料电池和蓄电池中强烈需要高性能催化剂，以满足地球仪不断增长的能源需求并减少对化石燃料的依赖。能量储存和转换装置中的催化剂促进决定其效率、耐用性和成本的关键电化学反应。这些应用中的大多数要求催化剂具有大的表面积和合适的化学性质以促进反应动力学。尽管在各个层面上取得了进展，但仍然缺乏能够满足高催化活性，耐用性和成本效益的必要要求的通用纳米制造技术。该奖项将研究用于许多能量转换和存储应用的金属纳米结构催化剂的新范例。与基础研究一起，将制定一项教育计划，为研究生、本科生和高中生提供培训和研究机会。将作出特别努力，鼓励妇女和代表性不足的少数民族学生参加研究，这将提高他们在科学和工程学中的保留率。的概念，理论和结果将用于加强现有的和创建新的本科和研究生课程。该项目的成功将为可扩展的金属玻璃催化剂纳米制造提供一种变革性的方法，用于清洁能源转换和存储技术，如燃料电池，电池和水分解系统。本研究的目标是研究金属玻璃纳米结构催化活性的基本机制，并创造可扩展的和低成本的方法，用于纳米制造用于能量转换和存储技术的高性能无定形催化剂。金属玻璃由于其亚稳态结构、可调化学性质和广泛的组成范围而作为高性能电催化剂具有吸引力。尽管有这些独特的属性，但金属玻璃的应用一直受到生产高质量催化剂的有限能力的阻碍。这项研究将开发一种新的工艺，直接将传统金属转化为高性能的分级纳米催化剂。此外，金属玻璃表面形态和化学及其对催化活性的影响的模拟将使用第一性原理方法进行。将实验和计算相结合来确定电催化活性将加速寻找最佳金属玻璃催化剂，更好地理解催化现象，并揭示新的反应机理。

There is a strong need for high performance catalysts in energy-related technologies such as fuel cells and batteries to meet the growing energy demands across the globe and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Catalysts in energy storage and conversion devices promote the key electrochemical reactions that determine their efficiency, durability and cost. Most of these applications require that the catalysts have large surface area paired with suitable chemistry to facilitate the reaction kinetics. Despite progress at various levels, a versatile nanomanufacturing technology that can meet the necessary requirements of high catalytic activity, durability and cost effectiveness is lacking. This award will investigate a new paradigm of metallic nanostructure catalysts for use in a number of energy conversion and storage applications. Together with the basic research, an education program will be developed to provide training and research opportunities to graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students. Special efforts will be made to encourage women and under-represented minority students to participate in the research, which will improve their retention in science and engineering. The concept, theory, and results will be used in strengthening existing and creating new undergraduate and graduate level courses. The success of this project will provide a transformative approach for scalable nanomanufacturing of metallic-glass catalysts for clean energy conversion and storage technologies such as fuel cells, batteries, and water splitting systems.The objectives of this research are to study fundamental mechanisms of catalytic activity for metallic glass nanostructures, and to create scalable and low-cost approaches for nanomanufacturing high-performance amorphous catalysts for energy conversion and storage technologies. Metallic-glasses are attractive as high-performance electrocatalysts because of their metastable structure, tunable chemistry, and availability in a wide range of compositions. Despite these unique attributes, the application of metallic glasses has been impeded by the limited ability to produce high-quality catalysts. This research will develop a novel process that directly transforms conventional metals into high-performance hierarchical nanocatalysts. In addition, simulations of the metallic-glass surface morphology and chemistry and their effect on catalytic activity will be carried out using first-principles methods. The integration of experiment and computation to determine electro-catalytic activity will speed up the search for the best metallic glass catalysts, provide better understanding of the catalytic phenomena, and uncover new reaction mechanisms.