Electrocatalysis lies at the interface between chemistry and physics and represents one of the most promising approaches for enabling renewable energy technologies to mitigate carbon emissions through the use of hydrogen fuel cells and the electrochemical reduction of CO2. One of the key challenges is understanding how to achieve and sustain electrocatalytic activity under operating conditions for extended time periods. Such fundamental understanding calls for the use of multimodal operando analytical methods.
In this talk, Dr. Yang will introduce his recent work on operando correlative studies for identifying the complex nature of active Cu nanograins for CO2 electroreduction. He will focus on the development of multimodal operando methods to elucidate structure-property relationships of energy materials with an emphasis on electrochemical liquid cell scanning transmission electron microscopy (EC-STEM). Data sizes increase rapidly when correlating GB-level 4D-STEM datasets with operando X-ray methods across multiple spatiotemporal scales, which show the potential to incorporate the latest development in machine learning.
Biography
Dr. Yao Yang received his B.S. at Wuhan University in 2015 and Ph.D. at Cornell University in 2021. He was co-advised by Profs. Héctor Abruña in chemistry and David Muller in applied physics, and worked extensively with Prof. Francis DiSalvo on solid-state chemistry. His Ph.D. research focused on the design, synthesis and electrochemical mechanisms of precious-metal-free electrocatalysts for hydrogen fuel cells. As a Miller fellow at UC Berkeley, he now works with Prof. Peidong Yang investigating the dynamic evolution of nanocatalysts for CO2 conversion to liquid fuels.
He received the Wentink Award (Highest Graduate Award in Chemistry at Cornell, 2020), Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) Student Research Award (2020), ACS AC/DC Rising Stars in Analytical Chemistry (2022). He was recently elected the chair of Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) for Gordon Liquid-Phase TEM conference in 2024.
