Grant for Prof. Byers

The Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture, Santé, Nature et technologies (FRQNT), have announced the results of the 2018-2019 grant competitions. Professor Joshua Byers, member of NanoQAM, obtained a research grant for his project on the studies of hybrid electrocatalysts on the nano scale.

Joshua Byers

Prof. Joshua Byers, obtained a grant from the Quebec Research Fund – Nature and Technologies (Team Research Project Program) for his research project on “Studies of hybrid electrocatalysts at the nano scale.”

The proposed research project aims to determine the interactions between nanoparticles of electrocatalysts and carbon supports to develop new strategies for synthesizing more efficient electrode materials. This project brings together a team of experts on carbon materials and nanoparticles with specialists in electrochemical imaging at the nanometric scale, in order to develop new ways to visualize the electrocatalytic processes on individual graphene nanomaterials and nanoparticles. bimetallic. This collaborative effort will allow the rational synthesis of efficient, selective and stable nanostructured electrode materials.

In this project, we will focus on the oxygen reduction reaction, a technologically important electrocatalytic reaction for fuel cells. Although conceptually simple, the electrocatalytic transformation of oxygen into water involves several stages with breakage and formation of chemical bonds in concert with redox reactions on the surface of an electrode. In each of these stages, a complex dynamic exists between the surface of the electrode and the reagents / products / intermediates. Often, the intermediate species generated can be mobile and separate to react at a different site (for example, a defect) before a reaction is complete. In other words, the initial adsorption of the reactants and the subsequent formation of the product can occur in two completely different places. Thus, controlling the surface sensitivity at multiple sites is the key to realizing the considerable benefits offered by hybrid electrode materials. We propose to design and synthesize electrodes composed of well-defined hybrid nanomaterials of graphene and bimetallic nanoparticles. Controlling the chemistry of the graphene surface and the composition of bimetallic nanoparticles will allow us to explore the fundamental relationships at the nanometric scale between the electrocatalyst, the graphene support and the oxygen reduction reaction.

The rational synthesis of nanoparticle electrocatalysts is mainly guided by measurements of monocrystalline electrodes, of large dimensions (several millimeters), where the crystallographic orientation, the density of the stages and the defects are well defined. However, subtle nanoscale effects of the individual nanoparticles due to the size, structure or composition, as well as the dynamic interaction that may exist between the nanoparticles and the support are not present for the large monocrystalline electrode. In order to decouple particle-substrate effects at the nanoscale, we intend to develop a completely new methodology using scanning electrochemical microscopy to visualize electrocatalytic activity at the level of individual nanomaterials. We will accomplish this goal by developing a combined experimental-theoretical approach that will significantly increase the rate of image acquisition, allowing measurements at different electrode potentials and quantitative kinetic analysis of individual nanomaterials, which represents a significant progressive change in electrochemical imaging of the activity of electrode materials.