(7eh) Developing Fundamental Insights into Heterogeneous Catalytic Reactions for Selective Chemical Production and Sustainable Fuels

The control of selectivity in complex chemical reaction networks has become the focus of heterogeneous catalysis in the 21^st century where the goal is to decrease unwanted byproducts and to maximize cost effectiveness, energy efficiency and sustainability. My research interests focus on gaining fundamental insights into chemical reactions and selective chemical production by combining careful catalyst synthesis with state of the art in-situ spectroscopy in order to understand the dynamic nature of active sites under reaction conditions. The rational design of new catalysts through fundamental knowledge will be critical to meeting the demands of the changing landscape of the chemical and energy industries.

My Ph.D. dissertation work with Professor Phillip Christopher in the department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Riverside focused on a multifaceted approach to investigate the impacts of local geometric and electronic structure on catalytic performance, in close collaboration with theoretical and in-situ microscopy techniques. Some examples included: exploiting in-situ infrared spectroscopy and rigorous reaction kinetic studies to reveal the active site in structurally dynamic reaction systems, utilizing photocatalysis to control selectivity and activate targeted strong metal-adsorbate bonds by matching photon wavelength with bond energies of hybridized metal-adsorbate bonds, and modifying metal-support interfaces to efficiently remove atmospheric contaminants for confined space pollution control applications.

My current postdoctoral work with Professor Mark E. Davis in the department of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology has involved the investigation of catalytic reaction mechanisms over microporous zeolite catalysts. For example, using controlled catalyst synthesis, reaction condition optimization and reaction kinetics to investigate the direct synthesis of important commodity chemicals from CO₂ and CH₄. I plan to continue working on the controlled design of zeolite based catalysts for investigating the fundamental mechanisms of complex reaction pathways.

In the future, I will unite the skills I have learned in my Ph.D. and postdoctoral work and focus on gaining fundamental insights into important chemical reactions, improving efficiency for the selective production of commodity chemicals, and sustainable fuel production. Specifically, I plan to use controlled catalyst synthesis, in-situ spectroscopy, detailed reaction kinetics, and photocatalysis as tools to promote the fundamental understanding of these reactions, and enhance catalytic selectivity in important reactions. It is my goal to move the field towards meeting the increasing demands of society for energy efficiency and sustainability through developing fundamental knowledge of reaction mechanisms and utilizing this knowledge to enhance efficiency and catalyst performance.

Teaching Interests:

During my time as an undergraduate and graduate student, I have served as a tutor for several chemistry and chemical engineering classes, been a TA for various chemical engineering laboratories, in addition to giving lectures in a Catalysis Reaction Engineering course. I have also served as a direct mentor for ten undergraduate students and four graduate students in the lab. In the future, I hope to help future chemical engineers develop a passion for catalysis, reaction engineering and energy research. I feel that I would be able to best accomplish this through teaching courses such as Kinetics and Catalysis & Reaction Engineering, but would be comfortable with core chemical engineering courses such as Thermodynamics and Transport Phenomena.

Selected Publications:

[1] Li, K.; Hogan, N. J.; Kale, M. J.; Halas, N. J.; Nordlander, P.; Christopher, P. “Balancing Near-Field Enhancement, Absorption, and Scattering for Effective Antenna-Reactor Plasmonic Photocatalysis”, Nano Letters (2017) 17, 3710-3717.

[2] Avanesian, T.*; Dai, S.*; Kale, M. J.*; Graham, G. W.; Pan, X.; Christopher, P. “Quantitative and Atomic Scale View of CO-Induced Pt Nanoparticle Surface Reconstruction at Saturation Coverage via DFT Calculations Coupled with in-situ TEM and IR”, JACS (2017), 139, 4551-4558.

[3] Kale, M. J.*; Gidcumb, D.*; Gulian, F. J.; Miller, S. P.; Clark, C. H.; Christopher, P. Evaluation of Precious Metal Catalyst Stability for Confined Space Pollution Control. Applied Catalysis B (2017), 203 533-540.

[4] Kale, M. J.; Christopher, P. Utilizing quantitative in-situ FTIR spectroscopy to identify well-coordinated Pt atoms as the active site for CO oxidation on Al₂O₃ supported Pt catalysts. ACS Catalysis (2016), 6, 5599-5609.

[5] Kale, M. J.; Christopher, P. Plasmons at the interface. Science (2015), 349, 587-588.

[6] Kale, M. J.; Avanesian, T.; Xin, H.; Yan, J.; Christopher, P. Controlling Catalytic Selectivity on Metal Nanoparticles by Direct Photoexcitation of Adsorbate-Metal Bonds. Nano Letters (2014), 14, 5405-5412.

[7] Kale, M. J.; Avanesian, T.; Christopher, P. Direct Photocatalysis by Plasmonic Nanostructures. ACS Catalysis (2014), 4, 116–128.

*Co-first author