Oct 28
Chemistry Department Seminar: Brian Leonard
Transition metal carbide compounds are an interesting class of materials that possess some of the highest melting points and hardness values of all known compounds. These materials are also being sought for precious metal free catalysis due to their abundance, low cost and high stability in extreme environments. Metal carbides have shown similar activity to platinum in some catalytic reactions, however their synthesis typically involves very high temperatures and thus limits exploratory investigations as well as particle sizes. We are developing several low temperature methods to synthesis these refractory materials at temperatures several hundred degrees lower than traditional methods. Through these low temperature methods, we have been able to synthesize several phases as nanomaterials including metastable and rare phases that have been largely ignored due to their difficult synthesis. Finally, these metal carbides have been shown to be promising catalysts for water splitting reactions with high activity and great stability.