X-ray visions: Insights into functional energy materials

Abstract: Our need for clean energy drives widespread materials research, from energy storage in lithium-ion batteries to efficient catalytic conversions of chemical fuels to the capture of CO2 from the air. Breakthroughs can be driven by discoveries of new materials or advances in the tools that we use to understand how these materials function and fail. We exploit advanced characterization tools to probe the atomic structure of energy materials in situ, as they function or react. This allows us to identify how their functional behaviors are governed by their structure and chemistry. These fundamental insights serve as a road map towards next-generation clean energy solutions. This presentation will describe recent insights into the structure-function relationship in energy-relevant materials derived from operando high energy synchrotron X-ray scattering and pair distribution function analysis. Examples will include understanding the function and performance limitations of current and next generation battery materials, rational synthesis of new functional nanomaterials, and understanding the local structure dynamics of metal-organic frameworks with applications in catalysis and gas capture.

Bio: Karena Chapman is Endowed Chair in Materials Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Stony Brook University. Before moving the Stony Brook University, she was a chemist at Argonne National Laboratory, building first dedicated Pair Distribution Function instrument at the Advanced Photon Source. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on understanding the coupling of structure and reactivity in energy-relevant materials for which she develops new operando characterization tools and analytics. She is currently engaged in projects on battery electrodes and electrolytes, nanoporous materials for catalysis and CO2 capture and advanced materials synthesis. Her work has been recognized as one of American Chemical Society's Talented 12 in 2016 and was awarded the 2015 MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award and 2023 I Hanawalt Award. She previously served as a main editor of the Journal of Applied Crystallography and is currently an Associate Editor for ACS Energy Letters.

All seminars are held on Wednesdays from 12:00 noon-1:00 p.m. in the Bowen Hall Auditorium Room 222. A light lunch is provided at 11:30 a.m. in the Bowen Hall Atrium immediately prior to the seminar.