Description:

Speaker: Michael Wong, Rice University
Title: Elaborating Heterogeneous Catalysis Concepts for Clean Water

Abstract
One of the central tenets in the field of heterogeneous catalysis is the surface catalytic properties of a material are controlled by its nanostructure. By understanding the structure-property connection at increasingly fine detail, one can create materials to improve our understanding of chemical reactions at the molecular level, and to imbue them with enhanced catalytic performance (i.e., the three S's of speed, selectivity and stability). Through a synthesis-structure-property approach, there is tremendous potential for success in treating recalcitrant water-borne contaminants. To illustrate the developments in this growing genre of heterogeneous catalysis, I discuss several clean-water reaction systems from established and new work from my research program: (1) hydrodechlorination of chlorinated volatible organic compounds using Pd-subshell/Au-core nanostructures and (2) nitrate reduction using In-subshell/Pd-core nanoshapes. These metal-on-metal catalyst offer interesting insights for their respective reactions, i.e., volcano activity dependence on surface coverage.

Biography
Dr. Michael S. Wong is Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He is also Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering. He was educated and trained at Caltech, MIT, and UCSB before arriving at Rice in 2001. His research program broadly addresses chemical engineering problems using the tools of materials chemistry, with a particular interest in energy and environmental applications ("catalysis for clean water") and an emphasis on understanding synthesis-structure-property relationships in heterogeneous catalysis. Current research activities and interests are (i) structure-property analysis of palladium-on-gold catalysts; (ii) metal-on-metal nanoparticle synthesis; (iii) treatment of dioxane, nitrate, fluorocarbons, and chlorocarbons from water; (iv) sugar upgrading chemistry, and (v) nanoparticle assembly.
He has received numerous honors over the years, including the MIT TR35 Young Innovator Award, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Nanoscale Science and Engineering Young Investigator Award, Smithsonian Magazine Young Innovator Award, Guest Professorship at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), and in 2015, the North American Catalysis Society/Southwest Catalysis Society Excellence in Applied Catalysis Award. He is Research Thrust Leader on 'Multifunctional Nanomaterials" and part of the Leadership Team in the NSF-funded NEWT (Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment) Engineering Research Center, based at Rice. He is Chair of the ACS Division of Catalysis Science and Technology (CATL), and serves on the Applied Catalysis B: Environmental editorial board. Previous service includes Chairmanship of the AIChE Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum and Chemistry of Materials editorial board membership.