Webinar title: Photosynthesis Catalyst Particle Engineering
Speaker: Prof. Jiadong Xiao
Time: March 31, 2025 (Monday) 10:00
Venue: Room 200, New Environmental Building
Inviter: Zehui Li, Yongping Huang
Abstract:
The large-scale and continuous production of solar fuels and high-value chemicals through artificial photosynthesis represents a crucial pathway for achieving the national "Dual Carbon" strategy, with the potential to fundamentally transform the global energy landscape. The development of novel and efficient catalytic materials for artificial photosynthesis is a prerequisite and foundation for enhancing process efficiency and realizing its large-scale industrial application.
The presentation is centered on the design and engineering of single particles, with a primary focus on the rational design and precise construction strategies of advanced solid catalysts for two key pathways in artificial photosynthesis technology: "solar photocatalytic overall water splitting for hydrogen production" and "renewable syngas conversion to clean liquid fuels." Specifically, it includes: (1) The innovative development of a new strategy that couples defect regulation in semiconductor particles with the in-situ co-loading of efficient dual co-catalyst nanoparticles. This has led to the establishment of advanced spectroscopic coupling analysis methods for efficiently identifying chemical defect functionalities, resulting in the creation of tantalum-based oxynitride particle photocatalysts that are among the very few capable of completely decomposing pure water in a single step under light excitation, with a response to long wavelengths. (2) The development of a metal@zeolite hollow double-shell integrated particle catalytic material with a novel spatial configuration, featuring enhanced mass transfer and reaction properties, along with a universal preparation method. This has enabled the direct and highly selective conversion of renewable syngas into clean liquid fuels.
About the speaker:
Dr. Jiadong Xiao is is an Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the College of Chemical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), and an independent Principal Investigator (PI). He has been selected for the National High-Level Youth Talent Program (Overseas) and the Hundred Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. With a long-term focus on energy and environmental photocatalysis/thermal catalysis materials and reactions, as well as in-situ spectroscopy research, he has published nearly 50 SCI papers. As the first author (including co-first author), he has published nearly 20 papers in prestigious journals such as Nature Materials, Accounts of Chemical Research, Nature Communications, Journal of the American Chemical Society, and Angewandte Chemie International Edition. He has co-edited one English monograph for the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and authored two chapters for RSC and Wiley book publications. His accolades include the First Prize of the China Association for Instrumental Analysis Science and Technology Award (4/9), the Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the inaugural CPCIF-Clariant Sustainable Development Youth Innovation Award.