Surendranath Research Group

Research in the Surendranath Group focuses on the investigation and manipulation of chemical reactions occurring at solid-liquid interfaces. In particular, the Group aims to use electricity to rearrange chemical bonds by controlling interfacial reactivity at the molecular level. The chemistry of these interfaces is at the heart of nearly all contemporary challenges in renewable energy storage and utilization in a wide variety of devices ranging from batteries, to fuel cells, to electrolyzers and, therefore, addressing these challenges is essential for enabling a low-carbon energy future.

The macroscopic, device-scale, properties of any electrode are dictated principally by the individual elementary charge transfer reactions that occur at the solid-liquid interface. Thus, the development of next-generation devices for renewable energy storage and utilization requires strategies for understanding and manipulating these elementary charge transfer reactions at the level of atoms and molecules. The cycle of research in the group follows the following general trajectory: (1) novel interfacial structures are synthesized using tunable methods (2) the mechanisms of interfacial reactions are probed in detail to identify the efficiency limiting steps (3) the performance of each designer interface is evaluated and compared to identify new design principles for iterative optimization. This approach distinguishes itself from traditional methods for improving electrode performance that rely principally on trial and error.