(2gn) Interfacial Dynamics for Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage

Recent decades have witnessed a rise of renewable energy such as solar and wind to constitute a substantial part of the global energy landscape. Nowadays, the cost of renewable electricity generation has become competitive against the conventional power plants that consume fossil fuels and cause environmental concerns. However, these renewable energy resources are intermittent in nature which may not satisfy human demand at any given period. Widespread utilization of renewable energy calls for advanced chemistry to convert and store that energy into safe and dispatchable carriers, such as chemical fuels and Li batteries. Pushing the frontiers of next-generation energy technologies relies on an in-depth fundamental understanding of interfacial chemistry occurring in these energy devices.

Aspiring to be a faculty member, my future Research Interests will broadly cover solar-to-chemical conversion as well as advanced battery chemistries, with a focus on revealing and understanding the interfacial dynamics during electrochemistry. Based on my PhD accomplishments at Caltech, my research on photo-electrocatalysis will look into new chemical reactions such as C-N bond coupling for organic synthesis, using efficient charge collection at semiconductor/liquid junction. Light-driven transformation of materials interfaces will also be explored for emerging photoactive materials such as perovskites under varied micro-environments, which can display new reactivities towards specific chemistries. Following my post-doc works at Stanford, my future works on batteries will focus on understanding the electrolyte reactivities as a function of electrochemical driving forces for different battery applications such as Li, Na and Mg batteries etc. More specifically, I will pursue not only understanding the pathway and kinetics of chemical or electrochemical reactions, but also developing a generalized understanding of these reactions across different battery chemistries.

Overall, a significant emphasis will be placed on leveraging the power of systematic experiment design, to establish mechanistic insights into both fundamental physical and chemical processes underpinning the stability of electrochemical interfaces. New advanced characterization techniques such as ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) and electrochemical atomic force microscopy (EC-AFM), will be employed to strengthen such comprehensive understanding of interfacial dynamics induced by electron transfer.

As for Teaching Interests, I am interested in teaching courses related to fundamental electrochemistry, semiconductor photoelectrochemistry, energy conversion and storage as well as materials chemistry. Also, I will work on developing new courses that connect fundamental phenomenon in energy chemistry with problem solving for practical applications. My teaching will combine conventional lecturing styles with explorative formats of student seminars on topics of their interests. One major goal is to elevate the self-learning capability of students by promoting their literature reading, constructive discussions as well as team projects.