Hamers Group Research Projects
Using surface chemistry to tailor the properties of materials, enabling development of materials and interfaces with unique properties for storage and conversion of energy.
Renewable energy is a new and rapidly growing area of interest. These projects leverage the strengths of our group in surface chemistry to create new types of interfaces with properties ideally suited for a number of applications in the energy field. By covalently linking molecular layers to the surfaces of nanoscale materials, we are able to fabricate new types of hybrid structures with novel properties.
Ongoing projects include:
a) Nanoscale catalytic materials for fuel cells: Vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (VACNFs) are a extremely useful material because they have extremely high surface area, excellent chemical stability under a wide range of harsh conditions, and are electrically conductive. We recently demonstrated a new method of fabricating high surface-area catalysts on VACNFs surface and showed that the resulting nanostructured surfaces have very high catalytic efficiency for methanol oxidation. (K.M. Metz et al., J. Phys. Chem. C, accepted for publication Feb. 2007) |
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| Scanning electron microscope image of Pt nanocrystals on a carbon nanofiber. The Pt nanocrystals are ~8 nanometers in diameter. |
b) Electrochemical energy storage: VACNFs have very high stability and are stable under a wide range of oxidizing and reducing conditions. In collaboration with the group of Professor West, we are investigated the use of VACNFs for electrochemical energy storage using novel types of organosilicon electrolytes. |
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| SEM image of a "forest" of vertically aligned carbon nanofibers |
c) Molecular catalysts: Recent work in our group shows that VACNFs can be linked to molecular systems that exhibit unique oxidation-reduction processes. We are currently working with several other groups to explore the application of molecular catalysts to solar-to-fuel and electrical-to-fuel energy conversion (i.e., sunlight + water = hydrogen + oxygen, sunlight --> electricity). |
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| Side view of a nanocrystalline TiO2 thin film for solar energy conversion |