People
Santhosh Chenna
I joined Dr. Crozier as a graduate student in Fall 2007. My area of research is on Nanocatalysts and Energy. Currently, I am focusing on metal supported catalysts, the goal of this project is to apply in-situ nanocharacterization to develop fundamental understanding of the nanoscale processes taking place during the synthesis of supported metal catalysts and the nanoscale changes taking place in the catalyst when it is exposed to reacting environments, and correlate the observations with the catalytic activity. In-situ characterization using an electron microscope gives an opportunity in recognizing the active sites for the reaction to happen. The purpose is to use this information in tailoring the catalytic material for a given reaction conditions.
To study these nanoscale changes in in-situ electron microscope, FEI Tecnai F20, we employ the supports with well defined simple geometries (like amorphous SiO2 nano-spheres, MgO nano-cubes with (100) planes), as simpler geometries are well suited to explore the interface effect in the synthesis process and easier to observe the changes in the morphology of the catalytic particles during in-situ electron microscopy. Initially we will be working on single metal catalyst. Synthesis steps involve (i) impregnation of support with precursor solution (usually metal salt dissolved in a solvent) (ii) precursor drying on the support (iii) calcining to metal oxide and (iv) reduction to metal nano particles. After forming the metal particles we subject the supported metal catalyst to the reaction conditions. The reaction we are interested in is the partial oxidation of methane to produce Hydrogen fuel. RIG-150 flow gas reactor in conjunction with Varian Gas Chromatography is used to measure the catalytic activities. After getting the fundamental understanding of the single metal catalyst we plan to explore the bimetallic catalysts.
