Tuesday, June 1, 2021 featured:
Professor Matteo Cargnello from Stanford University
"Understanding and Engineering Catalytic Materials Using Nanocrystal Precursors"
Abstract:
Catalytic processes are central to the goal of a sustainable future. A promising approach in
developing catalytic materials is represented by the design of catalytic sites based on the
knowledge of structure-property relationships, and in the precise synthesis of these sites at
the atomic and molecular level. Nanocrystal precursors, with tunable active sites and
compositions, can help in this mission. The goal of this talk is to show how this approach
can provide not only fundamental understanding of catalytic reactions, but also a way to
precisely engineer sites to produce efficient catalysts that are active, stable and selective
for several important transformations. Advances in the synthesis of these materials will be
presented. Examples of the use of these building blocks as supported systems or in
combination with hybrid organic materials will be shown, both to understand trends in
methane and CO2 activation, and in the preparation of optimized catalytic systems
combining multiple active phases. In all these examples, important efforts to obtain
precious structure-property relationships will be highlighted, with this knowledge used to
prepare more efficient and stable catalysts for reducing the emission of greenhouse gases
and for the sustainable production of fuels and chemicals.
Bio:
Matteo Cargnello received his Ph.D. in Nanotechnology in 2012 at the University of Trieste,
Italy, under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Fornasiero, and he was then a post-doctoral
scholar in the Chemistry Department at the University of Pennsylvania with Prof.
Christopher B. Murray before joining the Faculty at Stanford University in January 2015.
He is currently Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Materials
Science and Engineering and Terman Faculty Fellow. Dr. Cargnello is the recipient of
several awards including the ENI Award Debut in Research 2013, the European Federation
of Catalysis Societies Award as best European Ph.D. thesis in catalysis in 2013, the Sloan
Fellowship in 2018, the ANNIC Mid-Career Nanotechnology Scientific Award in 2019,
and the Mitsui Chemicals Catalysis Science Award for Creative Work in 2020. General goals of the research in the Cargnello group pertain to solving energy and environmental
challenges. Uniform and tailored nanocrystals and nanostructures are synthesized, studied
and used for energy and environmental applications through catalytic processes, with
emphasis on how to precisely control their structure to understand and exploit interactions
between well-defined building blocks.