Sustainable energy, water, and environment are critical challenges facing the human society. To enable a sustainable future, it is of paramount importance to develop materials for energy conversion and storage, water filtration and purification, carbon capture and storage, and so on. These emerging functionalities mainly occur at the surfaces and interfaces of materials, especially solid-liquid interfaces, where molecular adsorption, chemical transformation, and charge storage processes occur. Materials development in these areas require synergistic activities of materials synthesis, characterization, and performance tests. However, in situ/operando characterization of solid-liquid interfaces remains challenging. Traditional surface science techniques usually require operation in vacuum which is incompatible with liquid environments. To bridge the gap between surface science and realistic conditions of solid-liquid interfaces, various in situ/operando imaging and spectroscopy methods have been recently developed, utilizing scanning probe, optical, electron, and/or X-ray based approaches. Such techniques have significantly advanced our understanding of the atomic and molecular scale structure and kinetics at solid-liquid interfaces, providing guidance for the rational design of materials for energy, water, and environmental technologies. This symposium will bring together scientists from around the world to discuss characterization techniques, fundamental theories/mechanisms, and practical applications related to solid-liquid interfaces.

energy storage heterogenous in situ liquid scanning probe microscopy (SPM) simulation surface chemistry Sustainability x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS)