Synthesis of Energy Materials by Polymerization or Modifying Carbon Bonding
Hydrogen Storage and Production
Physical Adsorption, Water Splitting, Ammonia Decomposition, etc.
NETWORKS POLYMER & FUCTIONALIZED CARBON
# irreversible reaction, # edge-functionalization, # metal encapsulation
The study of chemical structure is crucial in chemistry and materials science. Materials structure can be classified in various ways, and the most familiar approach is to classify them according to the dimension of structure. For example, carbon composed of the same elements can be categorized into zerodimensional (0D) fullerene, one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanotube, two-dimensional (2D) graphene, and three-dimensional (3D) diamond, but due to particular arrangements of atoms the properties are significantly different depending on the structural dimension. Bearing this in mind, many organic structures were created by designing the symmetry of the molecules and using the polymerization to control the size of the structure (bottom-up strategy). The synthesized organic structures showed applicability to various applications such as gas separation, storage, membrane, and catalysis, etc. depending on the structural dimension. However, covalently bonded organic structures are limited in some areas because they are thermally unstable and have low conductivity. Therefore, I have studied a fused aromatic networks (FANs) structure as the energy materials to overcome the aforementioned limitations. The fused-ring has no free torsional motion, allowing stable electron transfer and providing thermal and chemical stability.
CATALYST
#Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), #Oxidative dehydrogenation (ODH),
#Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), # Ammonia decomposition
ELECTROCHEMICAL CATALYSIS
Carbon based materials have been considered as promising candidates to realize commercially available energy devices such as fuel cells, solar cells, water electrolyzer, and so on.
With structure controlled porous organic frameworks, I am searching for best electrocatalysts in various energy devices. The research deal with development of catalysts, analysis of electrochemical behavior, and operational mechanisms.
Among the various electrochemical catalysts, I am focusing on oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) catalyst for fuel cells and metal-air batteries, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst for eco-friendly producing hydrogen fuel from water.
THERMOCHEMICAL CATALYSIS
Carbon-based catalysts have attracted much attention for the reaction of organic molecules, due to their rich active sites, high conversion efficiency, and selectivity.
I have reported a simple ball-milling-induced mechanochemical reaction which can introduce metal and different functional groups (mostly stable aromatic C=O after heattreatment) along the edges of graphitic nanoplatelets.
By using these catalysts, I am studying dehydrogenation, ammonia decomposition reaction for improving environment and chemical industry.
HYDROGEN ENERGY
#Hydrogen adsorption, #Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), # Water splitting, # Electrode coating paste
