Public Research Seminar by Sustainable Energy and Environment Thrust, HKUST(GZ) - Structurally Tailored Metallic Materials for Highly Efficient Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage
Metallic materials play a critical role in electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications, such as fuel cells, water splitting and rechargeable batteries. However, they still suffer from low intrinsic electrocatalytic activities and complex charge and mass transport behaviors, hindering their widespread practical applications. In this talk, I will share my recent research focused on developing metallic materials with finely tailored structures, especially crystal phases, strains and pore structures, to address the above challenges. Firstly, I will talk about the synthesis of metal nanomaterials with controlled crystal phases to modulate the configurations of catalytic active sites for a range of electrocatalytic reactions. Secondly, I will discuss innovative strategies for introducing strains into metal nanomaterials to regulate their electronic structures for enhanced electrocatalytic alcohol oxidation performance. Finally, I will present the fabrication of three-dimensional porous metal current collectors to optimize the distributions of electrons and lithium ions in lithium metal anodes, thus improving the stability of Li metal batteries. These efforts would open new avenues for the advancement of high-performance metallic materials for diverse electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications.
Qinbai Yun is currently a Research Assistant Professor in Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Energy Institute at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He obtained his B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2013 and M.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering in 2016 from Tsinghua University, China. Then he completed his Ph.D. study in Materials Science and Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Hua Zhang at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2020. After that, he conducted postdoctoral research in Prof. Hua Zhang’s group at City University of Hong Kong. His research interests focus on the precise preparation of metallic materials with well-defined structures for electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications. He has published 65 academic papers including 20 as (co-) first author/co-corresponding author in Chem. Rev., Adv. Mater., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., J. Am. Chem. Soc., and Acc. Chem. Res.
For inquiries, please contact Miss Suggi WU (+86-20-88332966, suggilswu@hkust-gz.edu.cn)