Description:

Center for Catalysis and Surface Science (CCSS) Student Seminar Series

Friday, March 21, 2025 | 12-1pm CT
Ryan Hall, 4003 | 2190 Campus Drive
Food provided | Bring your own reusable water bottle!

Join the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science (CCSS) for the Student Seminar Series. Hear from graduate students and postdoctoral scholars during two presentations. This month's speakers are Jeremy North and Jolly Patro.

About the Presentations

Speaker: Jeremy North

Title: "Photomodulated Excitation Spectroscopy for Revealing Catalyst Surfaces"

Abstract: 

Photocatalytic heterogeneous systems exhibit complex kinetic pathways that are challenging to elucidate due to the vast diversity of active sites and potential intermediates. Photomodulation excitation infrared spectroscopy (pMEIRS) provides an approach to isolate the infrared absorbance feature(?) of adsorbed surface intermediates by analyzing their response magnitude and kinetics under illumination, providing insight on how adsorbed species behave under excitation. Herein, pMEIRS was applied to study carbon monoxide (CO) photodesorption on Cu/γ-Al2O3. Adsorption features corresponding to CuO and various Cu(0) sites, such as terraces, corners, and steps, were isolated with this approach. Our experiments revealed that CuO and high wavenumber Cu(0) sites respond to the nanoparticle’s intraband localized plasmon resonance while low wavenumber Cu(0) sites respond to the interband absorbance of Cu nanoparticles. These results demonstrate the capability of pMEIRS to differentiate adsorbates and their response dynamics under illumination, offering valuable insights into plasmon-mediated photocatalytic processes and the kinetic behavior of photoreactive surface species.

Speaker: Jolly Patro

Title: “Investigating Mechanophore Activation in Covalent Adaptable Networks”

Abstract: 

Polymer mechanochemistry is an emerging field of research in which mechanical force is transduced along polymer chains results in predictable chemical transformations for force-sensitive small molecules known as mechanophores. Mechanophores have been reported to produce color and chemiluminescence, switch electrical conductivity, and release small molecules. Such productive chemical transformations require large energy inputs and strains that is difficult to translate bulk polymeric materials, thus resulting in low mechanophore activation. Furthermore, current demonstrations of mechanophore activation in bulk are single-time use. Covalent adaptable networks are an exciting class of polymeric materials that allow reprocessing and self-healing through rearrangement of network topology. Herein, we investigate the incorporation of mechanophores in dynamic polymer networks to compare mechanophore activation in static and dynamic polymer networks.

The mission of the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science (CCSS) is to promote interdisciplinary research fundamental to the discovery, synthesis, and understanding of catalysts and catalytic reactions essential to modern society. As a part of the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy, CCSS applies fundamental advances in catalysis science towards applications in alternative fuels, abatement of harmful emissions, resource recovery concepts, new processing routes, and many other strategies towards making chemicals more sustainable.