Mogus Mochena
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, FL·Chemistry
Hydrogen burns cleanly, but most of it is made from fossil fuels at high temperatures. A potentially more efficient route is aqueous-phase reforming, which pulls hydrogen out of simple alcohols such as methanol, a renewable feedstock, in liquid water at low temperature.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Physics
- Topics
single-atom catalysts
heterogeneous catalysis
hydrogen production
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Predict the stability and electronic structure of platinum, palladium, rhodium and nickel single atoms on transition metal carbides and nitrides using density functional theory and machine learning, verified by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy in ultrahigh vacuum.
- Identify active sites and reaction mechanisms of aqueous-phase methanol reforming on stable single-atom catalysts through DFT simulations of reaction energies based on structures observed by in-situ and ex-situ STM.
- Screen for the most promising single-atom catalysts for low-temperature hydrogen production by combining kinetic Monte Carlo simulations with gas–liquid batch reactor experiments.
More about the research
Making this practical requires catalysts that work well and stay stable in liquid at mild conditions. Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are a promising option. They are individual metal atoms spread across a support surface, so nearly every metal atom does useful work. They also combine advantages of catalysts that are dissolved in a liquid and those that are solid surfaces.
Why it matters
Low-temperature catalysts that make hydrogen from renewable methanol could offer a cleaner, more efficient alternative to fossil-fuel-based hydrogen production. Using low-cost carbide and nitride supports with near-complete use of each metal atom could also reduce the amount of precious metals catalysts need.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Flaherty
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Chemistry
Synthesize gold-rich alloy nanoparticles containing palladium, platinum or rhodium at diameters of about 1–2, 6 and 10 nm, and track how gas adsorption and reactions restructure them over extended periods.
Matthew Montemore
Tulane University of Louisiana, LA·Engineering·Early-career
Screen alloy-host single-atom alloys with machine learning and density functional theory to find stable, active catalysts for oxidation and alkane conversion, then move top candidates to surface-science and nanoparticle tests.
Suljo Linic
University of Michigan, MI·Engineering
Synthesize plasmonic single atom alloy nanoparticles, silver or gold particles with isolated platinum, palladium, rhodium or ruthenium atoms at the surface, and characterize their geometry.
The school
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University: 5 labs on PI Pages, $69M a year on research, 41 research doctorates a year.
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