Our research focuses on the use of electron, ion and x-ray microscopy methods to characterize materials relevant to solving issues associated with the energy transition. This includes work on the generation of solar fuels, novel battery materials and architectures, carbon sequestration and catalytic nanomaterials.
We are fortunate to be a partner in The Center for Hybrid Approaches in Solar Energy to Liquid Fuels (CHASE) is a DOE Energy Innovation Hub headquartered in the Chemistry Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
CHASE includes research partners at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Yale University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the University of Pennsylvania, North Carolina State University, and Emory University and was initiated in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
CHASE’s Mission is “To develop molecule/material hybrid photoelectrodes for cooperative sunlight-driven generation of liquid fuels from carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water.”
We are are also a partner in a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences Energy Frontier Research Center: Integrated Mesoscale Architectures for Sustainable Catalysis.
IMASC is based at Harvard University and partners with Tufts University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University, the University of Florida, and UCLA.
The vision of IMASC is to advance the fundamental science necessary to change the face and carbon footprint of the chemical industry sector.
Established in 2014, IMASC 1.0 showed that a fundamental understanding gained from model surfaces at the molecular scale could be used to predict catalytic performance for support-free dilute alloys. This introduced a new paradigm for catalyst discovery.
Renewed in 2018, IMASC 2.0 is advancing this ground-breaking work at the intersection of surface chemistry and physics to transform how catalysts are designed.
We partner with Prof. Eric Detsi and Prof. Russ Composto at Penn, Dr. Wen Chen at UMass, Prof. Christopher Li at Drexel, Dr. Joanna Nelson Wecker at SLAC, Prof. Yue Qi at Brown and Dr. John Cook at Xerion as part of a National Science Foundation Future Manufacturing Research Grant entitled Sustainable Route to 3D Solid-State Sodium-ion Battery by Direct Ink Writing and Capillary Rise Infiltration
Working with Jennifer Wilcox, Aleksandra Vojvodic and Peter Psarras, we are exploring how mine tailings can be used for permanent sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere.