(353d) Catalyst Development for Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is of major importance to energy conversion in particular fuel cells and metal air batteries. Developing catalysts for ORR has been the focus of extensive research in the last decades. Currently, Pt-based catalysts are the best preformed catalysts for ORR. However, Pt is too expensive for feasible commercialization and development of alternative cost-effective materials is of utmost importance for large scale applications. In this talk, I will discuss several strategies to develop and design future generation of cost-effective catalysts for ORR using density functional theory calculations.^1-5

References:

1) Kulkarni, A.; Siahrostami, S.; Patel A., Nørskov, J. K. Understanding Catalytic Activity Trends in the Oxygen Reduction Reaction, Chem. Rev. 2018, 118, 2302–2312.

2) Back, S.; Hansen, M. H.; Garrido Torres, J. A.; Zhao, Z.; Nørskov, J. K.; Siahrostami, S.; Bajdich, M. Prediction of Stable and Active (Oxy-Hydro) Oxide Nanoislands on Noble-Metal Supports for Electrochemical Oxygen Reduction Reaction. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2019, 11 (2), 2006–2013.

3) Back, S.; Siahrostami, S. Noble Metal Supported Hexagonal Boron Nitride for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction: A DFT Study. Nanoscale Adv. 2018, 1 (1), 436–436.

4) Back, S.; Kulkarni, A.; Siahrostami, S. Single Metal Atoms Implanted in Two-Dimensional Materials: Bifunctional Catalysts for Fuel Cell Application. ChemCatChem 2018, 10, 3034–3039.

5) Abroshan, H.; Bothra, P.; Kulkarni, A.; Nørskov J. K.; Siahrostami, S. An Ultra-Thin Cobalt-Oxide Overlayer Promotes Catalytic Activity of Cobalt Nitride for Oxygen Reduction Reaction. J. Phys. Chem. C 2018, 122, 4783–4791.