Thursday, March 10th, 2016 
Presentation Time: 11:00 am 
Venue: Cymer Conference Center (Room 248) 
Structural Materials Engineering (SME) at UC San Diego
 

Prof. Anne Co

The Ohio State University

Introduction:

Prof. Anne Co’s research group is focused on understanding the chemical processes involved in electrochemical conversion and storage systems. Specifically, the relationship between surface properties influencing the electrocatalytic processes of O2 and CO2 reduction and the chemical processes governing capacity fade in high capacity Li intermetallic anodes. For example, highly efficient Pt-based catalysts are now able to deliver substantial currents at lower overpotentials for oxygen reduction (ORR), however, these low ORR overpotential occurs at a potential range where dynamic oxide layers are growing concurrently on the underlying Pt and Pt alloy surfaces resulting in the catalyst becoming oxidized over periods of prolonged use which alters both the catalytic activity and selectivity with time. Prof. Anne Co will present her group’s recent analysis on decoupling electrochemical contributions from oxide growth vs. catalytic activity of the ORR. She will also discuss the surface effects that influence the selectivity of CO2 reduction reaction catalysts to favor C2 and C3 hydrocarbon products followed by their recently developed nondestructive method to visualize and quantify Li atom position in real-time using neutrons by a method referred to as neutron depth profiling (NDP). In situ NDP is an ideal technique for probing Li complex formation, accumulation and transport within the battery material during charge/discharge. Currently, their work is focused on understanding the effect of an electrochemical event to the materials’ storage properties. In situ NDP has allowed us to investigate the preferential Li nucleation, Li trapping and Li transport in intermetallic materials like LixSny, LixSiy and LixAly and intercalating materials like LiNiMnCoO3.

Biosketch:

Prof. Anne Co obtained her Ph.D. in Chemistry with a specialization in Electrochemistry from the University of Calgary, Canada. She then joined National Research Council Canada as a NSERC Visiting Fellow and later as Research Associate. She was later awarded a Mary Fieser Fellowship Award and continued her postodoctoral studies with Professor Cynthia Friend at Harvard University. Prof. Anne Co’s research interest is in understanding electrode processes, mechanistic pathways of electrocatalytic reactions for applications related to energy conversion and storage. She joined the Ohio State Chemistry Department as an Assistant Professor since August of 2010.