CPM Journal Club
Material Physics for Artificial Photosynthesis
Xiang-Hua Kong
Department of Physics
McGill University
Artificial photosynthesis (AP) is a process to achieve solar to energy
conversion by producing solar-fuels from green-house gases like CO2. Over
several decades, extensive investigations were devoted to the fundamental
understanding of AP, though practical application of it for H2O splitting
and CO2 reduction remained elusive. It has been recognized that developing
efficient, stable, scalable and cost-effective photocatalysts is the key
to breakthrough. We found that through proper surface engineering and
architecture design, III-nitrides nanowires can act as a new generation of
photocatalyst material for highly efficient artificial photosynthesis, due
to their unique structural, optoelectronic and catalytic properties. In this
talk, I shall discuss basic materials physics associated with III-nitrides for
solar-to-fuel conversion. Specifically, three recent work concerning surface
physics, solid/solid interface physics and solid/liquid interface physics
will be presented, focusing on improving the oxygen evolution reaction (OER),
the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the understanding of microscopic
details of 2D material/water interfaces. These (and other) results have been
very helpful to our on-going collaboration with several experimental labs for
the goal of producing a practical and field-deployable solar-to-fuel system
to efficiently mitigate greenhouse gases.
Publications related to this talk:
[1] Semiconductors and Semimetals. Elsevier, 2017, 97: 223-255.
[2] Nature Communications, 2018, 9 (1), 3856.
[3] Phys. Rev. Materials, 2018, 2, 081001.
[4] Energy Environ. Sci., 2019, 10.1039/C9EE01339C.
[5] Electronic Structure of Aqueous 2D Photocatalyst, 2020, under review.
Thursday, May 7th 2020, 10:30
Tele-seminar
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