Wednesday, 4 October 2017: 10:30
National Harbor 6 (Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center)
A new age of human demand for renewable energy is coming and material scientists are devoted to developing new functional materials to produce clean and sustainable energy. It has always been a great challenge to improve the energy conversion/generation/storage efficiency of current energy material. In many important energy material systems such as nanostructured catalysts, artificial photosynthesis, smart materials, and energy storage devices, it is essential to determine the atomic/electronic structures near the interfacial region under the real working environment. Without comprehending the fundamental properties such as chemical states, atomic and electronic structures and how they alter near the interfacial region during the physical/chemical reaction, it is difficult to better design the material for advancing performance in an effective approach. Synchrotron x-ray spectroscopies, including x-ray absorption and x-ray emission spectroscopies are very powerful characterization tools to determine the local unoccupied and occupied electronic states. Exploiting the in situ/operando approach, the way to track the modification of atomic and electronic structures of the energy material under operational environment now becomes accessible. This presentation will report the in situ/operando characterization on energy relevant materials by synchrotron x-ray spectroscopy, including soft- and hard-x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Emerging characterization tool, recent progress of in situ technique development, and a number of recent studies will be presented in this talk.