Departmental Seminar - Materials Science and Engineering: Prof. David Eisenberg

Prof. David Eisenberg

Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

Rational design of microstructure, composition, and electrocatalysis in carbon materials

Carbon materials – highly porous, partially graphitic, and hetero-doped – are rising electrodes in electrochemical devices for energy storage. This is a curious twist of history: for many millennia carbon was mostly a low-value energy source, only good for burning up. These days, we find carbon electrodes in power sources as diverse as batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors. The microstructure of such carbons – affecting much of their electrochemical function – is hard to design and control. We have recently reported a family of N-doped, hierarchically porous carbons, whose structure and composition can be tuned rationally, opening the way to in-depth studies of structure–activity links. These carbons are derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), whose composition can be controlled and correlated to the final carbon structure, and ultimately, electrocatalytic properties. This talk will discuss design principles of carbon-based electrocatalysis, focusing on elegance of synthesis, separation of structural variables, and understanding electrocatalytic function.