Chemistry Seminar - Dr. Rodney Smith
Dr. Rodney Smith of the University of Waterloo will present a seminar.
Title:
Exploiting Structural Disorder to Study Reaction Sites in Heterogeneous Electrocatalysts
Abstract:
Defect sites are ubiquitous in heterogeneous catalysis. Such sites may, for example, be coordinatively unsaturated, assume a different coordination geometry, exhibit greater geometric/structural flexibility, or not be fully stabilized by crystal lattice energy. Owing to such properties, defect sites are often viewed as the active sites – those that are relevant to catalytic reaction cycles. The concentration of such defect sites, however, is expected to be significantly lower than the kinetically inactive “bulk” portion of the material in typical electrocatalysts. This effectively impedes characterization of their structure and chemistry. Modern fabrication techniques have facilitated the preparation of highly disordered metal oxide films with complex compositions that were previously difficult to obtain,1 thereby establishing a means to systematically analyze the structure and properties of disordered materials as a function of composition. The lack of mid- or long-range structural order in this class of materials enables them to be viewed as being comprised nearly exclusively of defect sites; structure-property trends within such datasets thus yield insights into the structure and chemistry of catalytically relevant reaction sites.2,3 The electrochemical analysis, structural characterization and in-situ spectroelectrochemical behavior for a subset of this class of materials will be discussed.
(1) Smith, R. D. L.; Prevot, M. S.; Fagan, R. D.; Zhang, Z.; Sedach, P. A.; Siu, M. K. J.; Trudel, S.; Berlinguette, C. P. Science 2013, 340, 60–63.
(2) Smith, R. D. L.; Pasquini, C.; Loos, S.; Chernev, P.; Klingan, K.; Kubella, P.; Mohammadi, M. R.; Gonzalez-Flores, D.; Dau, H. Nat. Commun. 2017, 8, 2022.
(3) Smith, R. D. L.; Pasquini, C.; Loos, S.; Chernev, P.; Klingan, K.; Kubella, P.; Mohammadi, M. R.; Gonzalez-Flores, D.; Dau, H. Energy Environ. Sci. 2018, in press.
Date: Monday, July 9, 2018
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Place: Thorvaldson 205A
EVERYONE WELCOME