Colloidal Design to Bridge the Materials Complexity Gap between Fundamental and Industrial Catalysis by Dr. Kang Rui Garrick Lim

NTU MSE Seminar Hosted by Professor Li Shuzhou

Abstract

Heterogeneous catalysts are indispensable to the production of more than 90% of the chemicals globally. However, there are vast differences in the structural complexity and reaction conditions between fundamental (i.e., surface science) and applied industrial catalysis research. For instance, in CO2-to-methanol catalysis, Cu atoms on pristine ZnO single crystals are studied academically under ultra-high vacuum conditions while industrial catalysts comprise Cu and ZnO nanoparticles dispersed on Al2O3 aggregates and are tested in highly pressurized vessels. Due to this wide materials complexity gap between fundamental and industrial catalysis research, important insights derived from fundamental studies often do not translate well to industrial catalysts.
In this talk, I will illustrate how leveraging on the colloidal principles of synthesis, self-assembly, and templating, affords well-defined and stable model catalyst platforms to bridge this materials complexity gap. Using the raspberry-colloid-templated catalyst platform and dilute atom alloy nanoparticles as two separate examples of my Ph.D. and postdoctoral research, I will showcase how these platforms independently isolate and precisely tune potential catalytic descriptors to derive unambiguously structure–property relationships to guide heterogeneous catalyst design. 

Biography

Dr. Kang Rui Garrick Lim (Incoming Nanyang Assistant Professor)
Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellow
Stanford University

Dr. Kang Rui Garrick Lim is Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellow and Incoming Nanyang Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University (2027). Garrick is a materials chemist from Singapore and presently, a Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Matteo Cargnello and Prof. Thomas F. Jaramillo at Stanford University. In 2027, Garrick will start as a Nanyang Assistant Professor at the School of Materials Science & Engineering in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Garrick completed his Ph.D. and Master's degree in chemistry at Harvard University under Prof. Joanna Aizenberg, and obtained his Bachelor's degree in chemistry from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Garrick’s broad research interest is to leverage on the colloidal design of catalytic architectures–their active sites and immediate environment–to bridge the materials complexity gap in catalyst design for low carbon energy research.