CHE 598 Seminar: The Effects Of Coverage On The Adsorption Of CO2 On La-Based Perovkites
About the event
SPEAKER: Ariel Whitten, Ph.D. Candidate, Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, WSU
BIOGRAPHY:
Ariel Whitten is a Chemical Engineering PhD student in their 5th year at WSU. Ariel is a Belgian American Educational Foundation fellow for 2024-2025 and studied O2 and H2 reactions on Rh tips using a field ion microscope at the Free University of Brussels. They worked at several labs during their undergrad at WSU creating catalysts for CO2 to CO conversion and testing different materials for the treatment of phosphate rich water. During their time as a graduate student, they have mainly focused on computational studies of perovskites to improve their reactivity in electrochemical cells. Other projects they have worked on investigated the XANES spectra of Ga containing molecules, reaction kinetics of OER on Co3In2S2 and the XPS spectra of Cu oxide surfaces.
ABSTRACT:
La-based perovskite materials have been found to be more stable than metal catalysts in electrochemical CO2 reduction processes but suffer from reduced catalytic activity as compared to metal catalysts such as Ni. For perovskites (structures with an ABO3 stoichiometry) to serve as alternative catalysts for this process, it is essential to understand the underlying surface chemistry in the presence of adsorbates in order to identify modifications that could enhance their activity. We investigate La-based perovskites—specifically LaNiO3, LaCoO3, and LaFeO3—where the A-site cation is fixed to La, as these materials are known to be highly active in CO2 reduction. Using both experimental studies and first-principles calculations, we examine how adsorbates influence their catalytic behavior. From our initial results on CO2 adsorption at varying coverages, we find that the lattice gas method—commonly used in the literature to model surface–adsorbate and adsorbate–adsorbate interactions for simple adsorbates such as CO, O, and H on metal surfaces—is difficult to apply within the lattice gas framework. We propose investigating other methods to find ways to quantify the surface-adsorbate and adsorbate-adsorbate interactions.