B.S.E., Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Michigan, 2005
B.S., Chemistry, Univ. of Michigan, 2005
M.S.E., Chemical Engineering, Univ. of Michigan, 2007
Joined Bell Group: Fall 2007
Research: Mechanisms of Reaction in Well-Defined Single Site Heterogeneous Catalytic Systems
Interests: Michigan Football, cooking, skiing, philosophy, teaching
The goal of this research is to develop a new method for characterizing the active phase(s) of metal oxide catalysts. Right now, we are focused on vanadium oxide, which is an active, selective catalyst for a number of important oxidation reactions. Depending on the amount of vanadium present and on the support material used (silica, titania, alumina, etc), a variety of different oxo-vanadium species may exist on the catalyst, each of which may have different catalytic properties. In order to better characterize this complex system, we deposit vanadium oxide onto silicon wafers bearing a thin (1-3 nm) metal oxide support layer. The silicon wafer provides an almost perfectly two-dimensional support, allowing the model catalyst to be characterized using tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). This technique augments Raman spectroscopy’s ability to identify chemical species by their vibrational signatures with a tip-enhancement effect that provides nanometer-scale spatial resolution and single-molecule chemical sensitivity. With TERS, complemented by AFM, XPS, and SIMS, we can discriminate among the different oxo-vanadium species present in supported catalysts, and understand how the distribution of these different species varies with total vanadium loading and with choice of support material. The methodology developed here can easily be extended to a variety of other interesting metal oxide catalyst systems.
Office: 510-642-1536, Lab: 510-643-3535
