Chemical and Energy Sciences

February 1, 2008

"Rational design of catalysts remains a pipe dream, because the experimental tools available for monitoring catalysts in action are still, by and large, too rudimentary."
Weckhuysen, B.M., Nature 439, 548 (2006)

Purpose & Scope:
Chemical and Energy Sciences (CES) is a name for the community of scientists using synchrotron radiation in the areas of catalysis, electrochemistry, battery materials and hydrogen storage research. As stated in the report of the 2002 BESAC workshop "Opportunities for Catalysis in the 21st century: "The Grand Challenge for catalysis science in the 21st century is to understand how to design catalyst structures to control catalytic activity and selectivity." To meet this challenge, a fundamental, atomic-scale understanding of the physical and chemical properties of catalytic materials is required. Since real catalysts and catalytic processes are extremely complex, the development of techniques for the characterization of catalytic systems in-situ, as they evolve in time with a changing chemical environment is a high priority. As outlined in the executive summary of the 2003 NSF "Future Directions in Catalysis: Structures that Function on the Nanoscale", "…although exemplary cases of in situ characterization methodologies have been reported, the consensus is that advancements that extend the limits of temperature, pressure and resolution both in space and time of current spectroscopies will be necessary to meet the grand challenge."

Energy conversion and hydrogen storage researchers are facing the same challenges. Quoting Yildrirum and Ciraci (Phys. Rev. Lett., 94 175501 (2005): "Developing safe, cost-effective, and practical means of storing hydrogen is crucial for the advancement of hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies. The current state of the art is at an impasse in providing any material that meets a storage capacity of 6 wt % or more required for practical applications."

While these will remain grand challenges, synchrotron x-ray sources are proving to be one invaluable link in these efforts, or a path toward "a pipe dream" from the epigraph, due to their unique capabilities for in situ structural and chemical probing. Due to its uniquely high brightness, flux, and spectral resolution, there are key areas where NSLS II can offer new solutions. The workshop participants will help identify key scientific drivers for catalysis, electrochemistry, hydrogen storage and related fields, what approaches should be taken, and what technical capabilities will be required. They will review the plans for a suite of primary beamlines needed to address the scientific challenges and give critique and new ideas to the working groups that are developing these documents. This suite of beamlines will also include NSLS beamlines that can be upgraded and transitioned to NSLS-II to serve the CES community and ensure a smooth transition of on-going programs.

The current draft of the white paper is available here. Please send your comments and suggestions to: Anatoly Frenkel (Anatoly.Frenkel@yu.edu).