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Electrifying the Chemical Industry through Electrocatalyst Discovery and Nanoscale in situ Imaging

Speaker: Ivan A. Moreno-Hernandez, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley

Host: Joel Kaar

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022 - 2:45 p.m. via

Seminar Abstract

Electrochemical materials are required to store renewable energy and sustainably couple the chemical and energy industries. This talk will focus on advancements in both the discovery of new electrocatalysts with improved performance and the development of techniques to observe the nanoscale structural dynamics of electrochemical materials in liquid environments. We will first discuss the discovery of an earth-abundant class of electrocatalysts that are thermodynamically stable for the oxygen evolution and chlorine evolution reactions in acidic electrolytes. Our discussion will then focus on the development of a redox-mediated approach to control electrochemical reactions in liquid cell electron microscopy, a technique that allows reactions to be observed at near-atomic resolution over time.

Biosketch

Dr. Ivan A. Moreno-Hernandez is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, working with Prof. A. Paul Alivisatos on the study of nanomaterials with liquid cell electron microscopy. Ivan received his B.S. degree in Chemistry and Physics with University Honors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2014, and his Ph.D. degree as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 2019. His research at Caltech with Prof. Nathan S. Lewis focused on the study of earth-abundant materials for anodic reactions in acidic electrolytes. His current research interests focus on the application of electrochemistry to renewable energy, with an emphasis on understanding the structural dynamics of electrochemical materials with in situ liquid cell electron microscopy.