Interface Science and Catalysis

Contact: Peter Sutter

Research Description

The world is facing unprecedented challenges in satisfying a rapidly growing demand for energy while reducing negative impacts on the global climate system and the environment. Any solution to these issues will necessarily involve the development of renewable energy sources, together with new strategies for efficient energy utilization and sustainable (‘green’) manufacturing processes. Interface science and catalysis already play an important role in all of these areas, but new catalysts providing improved reactivity and selectivity at dramatically reduced cost need to be developed to enable the required transformations of processes and economies on a global scale.

Nanoscience has the potential to fundamentally alter the approach to catalyst design from the traditional empirical methods to a rational design strategy based on a fundamental understanding of the relevant microscopic processes. Interface nanoscience contributes new approaches, tools, and techniques to rational catalyst design. The ability to assemble and characterize model catalysts with atomic-scale precision promises performance gains by discovering and exploiting support interactions, specific active sites, and size-dependent behavior at the nanoscale. Harnessing atomic-scale processes also requires recognition of the fact that key properties, such the active phase of a catalyst may depend on the reaction conditions and may be continuously modified in reactive environments, particularly if the active catalyst has nanometer-scale dimensions.

Our research program on Interface Science and Catalysis aims to discover and quantify nanoscale phenomena that can be exploited to boost the reactivity of future generations of energy-relevant catalysts, to enhance the efficiency of greenhouse gas capture and reforming processes, and for the controlled synthesis of novel high-performance materials. Our approach has two defining characteristics: a strong focus on heterogeneous catalysis-inspired model systems fabricated and characterized with atomic-scale precision; and the interrogation of these systems in situ under realistic reaction conditions. Research in both areas will be enabled by a third component, the development of new experimental techniques and tools, which also provide far-reaching synergies between the CFN-internal science thrust, our User’s Program, and collaborations with catalysis scientists at and outside BNL.

Associated Group Facilities

• Proximal Probes Facility
• CFN End Stations at NSLS

Group Members

Staff

• Peter Sutter, Interfacial nanoscience, surface chemistry and electronic structure; Nanocatalysis; Nanostructure formation, manipulation, and (opto-) electronics; Nanoscience for energy conversion and storage; Scanning probe and electron microscopy.
• Jerzy (Jurek) Sadowski, Real-time, in-situ low-energy electron microscopy (LEEM) and photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) studies of the mechanisms governing the growth of thin organic films and formation of self-assembled monolayers (SAM) for electronic and catalytically relevant systems.
• David Starr, Development and study of model catalyst systems, interface science and catalysis of CO2 capture and reforming, interrogation of interfacial chemistry and catalysis in operando by ambient pressure photoemission spectroscopy.
• Percy Zahl, Surface science and nanostructures, catalysis, scanning probe microscopy and related techniques as spectroscopic imaging tools. Microscopy instrument and technique development, including hard- and software design for system control and large scale multidimensional data analysis.

Postdoctoral Fellows

• Abdullah Al-Mahboob
• Jayeeta Lahiri
• Rocio Cortes-Rodriguez

Last Modified: December 1, 2011
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One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

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