Time: December 12th, 2017, 9:30 am
Venue: Conference Room on First Floor, No. 1 Energy Building
Lecturer: Dr. Brian Seger, Technical University of Denmark
Abstract:
This talk will begin with an introduction on comparing 1-photon versus 2-photon tandem devices for photoelectrocatalytic water splitting. The recently developed modeling program at solarfuelsmodeling.com will be discussed and demonstrated how this program can be used to allow for quick results as well as allow one to compare their own experimental results to that which would be expected from theory. This discussion will be followed by our own analysis on photoelectrocatalysis devices from a materials perspective. A computational screening of various materials has shown that decoupling the photoabsorption process from the electrolyte can mitigate corrosion issues, and thus allow for a wider degree of materials to be used for photoelectrocatalytic reactions. The advantage of this approach is we can optimize a tandem solar cell and an electrolyzer separately and simply combine them together at the end.
Introduction:
Dr. Brian Seger is an associate professor in the Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark. He originally started his research in his PhD doing work with fuel cells under PrashantV. Kamat at the University of Notre Dame. During this work we worked on understanding graphene roles as an electron transfer material. He then built a photochemical reactor using a fuel cell design in which we photocatalytically degraded organics to CO2 and hydrogen. He continued this work as a post-doc in Lianzhou Wang’s group at the University of Queensland. After a year in the Wang group he moved to the Technical University of Denmark where he focused on silicon as part of a tandem water splitting device. For the last 6 years he has focused on tandem water splitting devices with a specialty in corrosion mitigation techniques. Additionally he created a modeling website located at SolarFuelsModeling.com. Within the last year he has modified his focus to include electrochemical CO2 reduction and electrochemical partial oxidation of alkane and alkenes. He has published 43 papers that have been cited over 4000 times with an H-index of 21. More details of Brian Seger’s research can be found at his website SegerResearch.com.
Contact: ZHENG Min, DNL16
Phone: 84379005