Symposium EC3-Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability

Transformative ways to increase efficiency, sustainability, and diversity in energy production, conversion and storage are needed to meet growing demand in energy and to reduce our society’s carbon footprint. Catalytic materials will play a key role here by facilitating desirable chemical transformations. Bringing the materials science perspective into catalyst discovery provides many opportunities in synthesis, characterization, and use of novel materials in energy applications. However, many of the current applications rely heavily on the use of precious metals, an approach which cannot be sustainable in long terms. Also, novel applications as the catalytic conversion of biomass in aqueous media require new, perhaps non-oxide, hydrothermally stable catalyst supports. To make a sizable contribution to addressing the society’s energy related issues, materials strategies to reduce the cost by employing more abundant elements as well as improved stability without sacrificing the performance typically realized with precious metal-based catalysts are highly desirable. Energy and materials cost efficient conversion of natural gas could significantly contribute to the production of synthetic fuels and a broad spectrum of chemicals in the foreseeable future. A highly efficient artificial photosynthesis of fuels via water splitting and CO₂ reduction are the hallmarks of clean energy, but significant challenges remain to achieve acceptable solar-energy conversion efficiency. All these applications, from catalysis to electro- to photocatalysis to storage in batteries have one common: design and development of new classes of materials. Advances in materials synthesis, atomic level characterization and theoretical/computational methods (and interconnecting these components) are poised to accelerate the discovery of novel materials for use as catalysts in energy applications.

This symposium is aimed at bringing together researchers in materials science, synthesis, heterogeneous catalysis, electrocatalysis, and photocatalysis to highlight recent progresses and discuss challenges and opportunities in the materials aspect of catalysis research for energy applications.

• Sunlight to fuels via photocatalytic materials
• Catalysis by materials with well-defined structures
• Characterization of materials for catalysis in energy
• Theory and modeling of materials for catalysis in energy
• Materials for catalytic production of fuels and chemicals from petroleum and biomass sources
• Metals, alloys, and non-precious-metal materials for electrocatalysis
• Synthesis in control of morphology, size, shape, interface, and pore structure

• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_0 (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_1 (University of South Florida, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_2 (University of California, Riverside, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_3 (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_4 (CNRI Pisa, Italy)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_5 (Yeshiva University, Israel)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_6 (University of California, Riverside, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_7 (Carnegie Mellon University, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_8 (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_9 (University of Wisconsin, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_10 (Shell Projects and Technology, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_11 (Wayne State University, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_12 (Technische Universität Wien, Austria)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_13 (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_14 (Fritz-Haber Institut Berlin, Germany)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_15 (Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_16 (Tufts University, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_17 (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_18 (Indiana University, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_19 (Kansas State University, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_20 (Boston College, USA)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_21 (Utrecht University, Netherlands)
• EC3_Catalytic Materials for Energy and Sustainability_22 (Stony Brook University, USA)