Oxygen Reduction Catalysis at Tunable Metal Sulfide Nanofilms

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind will play an increasing role in meeting the growing energy demands of the future. However, these sources are intermittent, having reliable energy when the sun doesn't shine or wind doesn't blow requires storage in an energy dense form such as a chemical fuel. The fuel energy can then be released to produce electricity on demand in a fuel cell. Currently, fuel cells are expensive and unsustainable due to the high cost and scarcity of the platinum-based catalysts needed to convert fuel to electricity. This project aims to develop low-cost, non-toxic, earth-abundant catalysts to replace platinum in future fuel cells. The work will allow graduate and undergraduate students and postdoctoral fellows to learn the modern techniques in chemistry for renewable energy science and to collaborate to discover new catalysts. The research work will also be integrated with a broad-based outreach effort, The Catalyst Genome Project, which will allow amateur researchers of all ages to discover, evaluate, and collaborate in the search for new catalysts for renewable energy storage.

With this award, the Chemical Catalysis Program of the Chemistry Division is funding Dr. Yogesh Surendranath of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to systematically investigate the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) mediated by late transition metal sulfide (MSx where M = Ni, Co, Fe) nanofilm electrocatalysts. Late transition metal sulfides (LTMSs) represent an attractive class of low-cost, earth-abundant ORR catalysts for low-temperature fuel cell cathodes but their development and optimization have been hampered by a lack of mechanistic understanding and an absence of fundamental design principles. The project will utilize a recently developed layer-by-layer chemical electrodeposition method for preparing nanometer-thick crystalline LTMS films to probe the active site structure and mechanism of ORR on these materials. From these studies, the work aims to extract broad periodic trends and overarching design principles that will be used to synthesize high-performance nanoparticulate LTMS ORR catalysts primed for integration into advanced fuel cell cathodes