Tuesday, March 15th, 2016
Presentation time: 10:00am
Venue: Cymer Conference Center (Room 248), Structural Materials Engineering (SME) at UC San Diego

Prof. Yun Hang Hu
Michigan Technological University

Abstract:
Because of the bonding flexibility of carbon, carbon-based materials exhibit various structures with a large variety of physical and chemical properties. Three-dimensional carbon allotropes (graphite and diamond) have been known from the earliest history. The zero-dimensional carbon fullerenes and one-dimensional carbon nanotubes were discovered within the last 30 years. Furthermore, isolated two-dimensional graphene, which is a one-atom thick carbon layer with hexagonal ‘‘honeycomb” lattice, was experimentally obtained 10 years ago. Actually, the discovery of those nano-structured carbon materials is one of the most important developments in science and engineering. In this lecture, Prof. Hu is going to discuss his research for (a) the defect structures and the endohedral complexes of C60, (b) the stability and structure of atomic carbon chains, and (c) the synthesis and application of three dimensional graphene sheets for energy.

Biography:
Dr. Yun Hang Hu is the inaugural Charles and Carroll McArthur Endowed Chair Professor at Michigan Technological University. Before joining Michigan Tech, he was a Senior Engineer at the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company and a Research Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D in physical chemistry from Xiamen University. His main research interests range from nanomaterials, clean fuels, solar energy, hydrogen production and storage, CO2 conversion, catalysis to quantum chemistry calculations. He has published more than 140 papers in reputed journals and delivered more than 100 invited talks to international conferences, universities, and research centers. He is the president of the Hydrogen Storage Division of International Association of Hydrogen Energy (IAHE). He was the chair of the Energy and Fuels Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) (2015), a program chair of ACS Fuels Chemistry Division (2012) and ACS Energy and Fuels Division (2012-2013). He is an editorial board member for numerous journals, including Scientific Reports (Nature group), Journal of Materials Chemistry A (RSC), International Journal of Energy Research (Wiley), and Catalysis Today (Elsevier). He is AAAS fellow, AIChE fellow, and RSC fellow.