Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

Catalysis research is essential to addressing the energy and environmental challenges we face today. In this talk, I will present an overview of catalysis research being performed at National Energy Technology Laboratory. I will first discuss the utilization of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and plasmonic nanoparticles for photocatalysis applications. These heterostructured catalysts combine the interesting optical properties of QDs and plasmonic nanoparticles with the catalytically active metal oxides to drive photocatalytic reduction of CO2 under visible light illumination. Preliminary effort on the demonstration of a continuous flow plasmonic reactor will be described. A second class of electrocatalysts using atomically precise metal clusters for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction and oxygen evolution reaction will be presented. These catalysts not only display excellent catalytic activity but also facilitate joint experimental and computational studies. Finally, I will briefly discuss our recent effort on the synthesis of nanocatalyts for Fischer-Tropsch catalysis.