Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering Graduate Seminar Series
About the event
The Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering is hosting a seminar presented by Nicholas Jaegers, Ph.D. Candidate, Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Washington State University.
Nicholas Jaegers earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2014. His undergraduate experience includes three internships where he gained experience in process engineering at a paper mill, resource management at a biorefinery, and catalyst evaluation for emissions controls operations with a utility, in addition to research at the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technology at Iowa State. Nicholas began pursuing his doctoral degree under Dr. Yong Wang at Washington State University as an ARCS Fellow in 2014 and is currently located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory where he supports research efforts using the characterization equipment available at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). Nicholas’ research centers on characterizing the state and reactivity of metal oxide catalysts under controlled environments, in particular by assisting in the development and application of in situ solid state nuclear magnetic resonance capabilities with his mentor, Dr. Jian Zhi Hu. Nicolas’ efforts help describe the structure of catalytically active sites and their nature under contrasting chemical environments. He has presented work five times at national and local meetings: NAM (2017), NORM (2018), and AIChE (2017, 2018) and has served as the secretary of the AIChE Columbia Valley Sections’ board of directors for three years.
Modifying the Structural Properties of Titania-Supported Vanadium Oxide Catalysts
Titania-supported vanadium oxide catalysts are widely employed for their catalytic capabilities for a wide array of chemical transformations, such as the oxidation of paraffins, olefins, alcohols, and sulfur dioxide as well as the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NOx. Due to their wide utilization, efforts to better understand their structure and function are expansive, which help to better identify the atomic-level interactions between the catalyst and reactants. Identifying factors that influence the surface structural properties and their impact on catalytic performance is thus, of great interest. Herein, we explore the structure and reactivity of titania-supported vanadium oxide catalysts that possess differing dominant facet exposure and metal loadings. We expand the discussion to explore the impact of promoters on the surface structure of the catalytically active sites and compound the results with reactivity studies to propose sites more favorable for catalytic turn over.