SBIR Phase I: High-throughput Nanocatalyst Synthesis and Screening for Broad Decarbonization

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是在向碳中和经济过渡的过程中加速新材料的发现、设计和商业化。其中一个目标是增加化学和能源行业对可再生电力的使用。一个主要障碍是缺乏有效的电催化剂来实现可再生过程，如绿色制氢，将二氧化碳转化为碳中性的化学品和燃料，或其他可以广泛地使各种行业脱碳的过程。传统的发现方法是缓慢和连续的，这限制了气候危机所要求的新型、商业上可行的电化学过程的发展。该项目将使人们能够更迅速、更彻底地寻找电催化剂，从而更深入地了解催化剂的性质，并通过向利用可再生能源的电气化过渡取代传统的基于化石燃料的过程，促进化学和能源工业的脱碳。拟议的平台将加速发现和开发使能材料，这些材料可以推向市场并在全球范围内部署，以实现更多可再生化学过程。这个SBIR一期项目建议开发一个通用平台，可以快速搜索广阔的材料空间，寻找更高性能的电催化剂材料，取代目前在有限的候选材料中测试的最好的材料。利用该项目的专有meglibrary技术，可以在一次实验中快速合成成千上万种独特的、定义良好的、单分散的和复杂的金属纳米颗粒库，再加上高通量筛选技术，可以快速探测数十万种独特的催化剂候选物，以找到性能优化的电催化剂。为了实现这一目标，该项目必须调整协议，以允许在电极上合成电催化剂巨库，并实现电催化剂筛选。此外，该方法需要强大的高通量筛选方法，可以定位特异性地询问催化剂候选物的电催化性能。利用这两项创新，将有可能通过搜索整个三元素铂和材料（Pt-M1-M2）空间，以每个铂原子为基础寻找最佳析氢反应催化剂，从而展示该平台的强大功能。这次演示将巩固将该平台转化为更广泛的材料空间和一系列反应的能力，这将影响全球的商业和行业。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is an acceleration in how new materials are discovered, designed, and commercialized in the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. One aim is to increase the use of renewable electricity in the chemical and energy industries. A major hurdle is the lack of efficient electrocatalysts that enable renewable processes, such as green hydrogen production, carbon dioxide (CO2) conversion into carbon-neutral chemicals and fuels, or other processes that can broadly decarbonize various industries. Traditional discovery methods are slow and serial, which limits the development of novel, commercially viable electrochemical processes demanded by the climate crisis. This project will enable a more rapid and exhaustive search for electrocatalysts, resulting in a deeper understanding of the nature of catalysts, and facilitating the decarbonization of the chemicals and energy industries by displacing traditional fossil fuel-based processes with a transition to electrification which utilizes increasing levels of renewable energy. The proposed platform will expedite the discovery and development of enabling materials, which can be brought to market and deployed globally to enable more renewable chemical processes.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a generalizable platform that can rapidly search through vast materials spaces for higher performance electrocatalyst materials, displacing the current materials which are simply the best amongst the limited candidates tested to date. Using this project’s proprietary Megalibrary technology, which enables the rapid synthesis of libraries of tens of thousands of unique, well-defined, monodisperse, and complex metal nanoparticles in a single experiment, coupled with high-throughput screening technologies, it is possible to quickly probe hundreds of thousands of unique catalyst candidates to find electrocatalysts optimized for performance. To accomplish this goal, the project must adapt protocols to allow the synthesis of electrocatalyst Megalibraries on electrodes and enable electrocatalyst screening. Additionally, the approach requires robust and high-throughput screening methods that can site-specifically interrogate the electrocatalytic properties of the catalyst candidates. Using these two innovations, it will be possible to then demonstrate the power of the platform by searching the entirety of a three element platinium and materials (Pt-M1-M2) space for the best hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst on a per platinum-atom basis. This demonstration will solidify the ability to translate this platform to a much broader materials space and set of reactions, which can impact businesses and industries globally.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.