Prof. Shaowei Chen from University of California Visited Our University

On Oct. 23, 2019, Professor Shaowei Chen from University of California visited Jiangsu University, and gave a wonderful report to the teachers and students of School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering. And the academic report entitled “Surface/Interface of Nanoparticles on the Implication of Electrocatalysis”. About 100 teachers and students attended the presentation.

Content of the Report:

Development of effective technologies for clean and sustainable energy has been attracting great attention. This presentation will focus on two important reactions, oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) for fuel cells and metal-air batteries, and hydrogen reduction reaction (HER) for electrochemical water splitting. To date, the most effective electrocatalysts towards both ORR and HER are based on Pt-group metals. However, the high costs and natural scarcity of Pt have severely limited their broad utilization. In this presentation, we will summarize recent progress in the development of ORR and HER electrocatalysts based on earth-abundant and cost-effective materials. In particular, we will report recent development in the design and engineering of single-atom catalysts for these reactions, which are exemplified with metal, nitrogen-doped porous carbons. The electrocatalytic activity is mostly due to the formation of MNx moieties where the synergistic interactions between the carbon matrix and metal centers facilitate the adsorption of important reaction intermediates. This is strongly supported by results from density functional theory calculations.