Viola Birss

Vendredi 20 juin à 10h30 - High-performance electrocatalytic materials for clean energy applications

 Viola BIRSS
Department of Chemistry, University of Calgary

Biography

Dr. Birss was one of the founders and then leader of both the Western Canada Fuel Cell Initiative and the pan-Canadian Solid Oxide Fuel Cells Canada (SOFCC) organization, and more recently, was the Scientific Co-Director of the SOFCC NSERC Strategic Research Network. She is currently the Scientific Director of CAESR-Tech (Calgary Advanced Energy Storage and Conversion Research Technologies), a large cluster of scientists and engineers who are focused on electrochemical technologies, e.g., electrolysis cells, fuel cells, a variety of batteries, and electrochemical capacitors, as well as electricity management and LCA at the University of Calgary, with CAESR-Tech then spawning the ME2 NSERC CREATE student training center.

Dr. Birss currently serves as the Co-Lead of the Electrolysis Theme of HyPT (Hydrogen Production Technologies), a Global Research Center involving Australia, the USA, UK and Canada. Dr. Birss has been the recipient of numerous prestigious scientific awards and honors, holding Fellowships in the Royal Society (UK), the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Society for Chemistry, and the Electrochemical Society. She is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A and of Materials Advances, is a recent recipient of the Order of the University of Calgary, and is the author of over 350 refereed scientific publications.

Dr. Birss’s research team is heavily focused on the discovery of a range of structurally ordered nanomaterials for a variety of clean energy and environment applications. This includes improving the performance/lifetime of PEM fuel cells using paradigm-shifting nanoporous carbon materials developed in her group, leading to the founding of a start-up company (Momentum Materials), and more recently, the development of novel electrocatalysts for green hydrogen production from seawater.

Her work is also centered around the application of highly active mixed conducting metal oxide perovskite catalysts that can split water and convert CO₂ to clean green fuels and chemicals in high temperature solid oxide electrolysis cells, relevant to her second start-up company (SeeO2 Energy). Other areas of research include the development of core shell nanoparticles, protective coatings and other novel strategies to combat the corrosion of metals, as well as the development of selective and sensitive electrochemical biosensors for the detection of pathogens.

Dr. Birss is a committed advocate for EDI, beginning in the early 90’s in her efforts specifically towards the attraction and retention of women in science and engineering.

keywords: electrocatalyst, CO₂ splitting, SOFC, nanoporous carbon, Li-ion and flow batteries, capacitors, electrochemical and biological sensors, core-shell nanoparticles, nanotubes…

Abstract

Improving the properties of electrodes and electrocatalysts is critical to both understanding and making step changes in the performance and durability of all electrochemical devices, including batteries, capacitors, fuel cells and electrolysis cells. In most cases, the electrodes must be porous (high surface area), conducting (often both ionically and electronically), have high catalytic activity, and must also be as durable as possible, especially considering the often aggressive oxidation/reduction conditions encountered during device operation. As part of this quest for high performance electrode materials, we have developed a promising class of perovskite metal oxide (ceramic) electrocatalysts (La0.3M0.7Fe0.7Cr0.3O3-δ (M = Sr,Ca, LMFCr) for use in high temperature all-solid-state fuel cells and electrolysis cells. LMCr is highly active and durable during reactions of oxygen, hydrogen, steam, CO2, CO and even in low ppm H2S environments, thus opening the door to symmetrical, reversible solid oxide cells. These can serve to store energy by CO2 and/or water splitting to produce CO and/or H2, which are then available for use in electricity generation when needed via the reverse reactions.

In another direction, we have developed a novel family of nano-templated carbon materials, with carbon being a ubiquitous material that is used in many low temperature electrochemical systems. However, most carbons are microporous (their internal surface area cannot be easily used) and are in powder form, thus requiring binders, leading to mass transport limitations and blockage of catalytic sites. To overcome these problems, we have developed a family of ordered mesoporous carbon powders as well as paradigm-shifting binderless, self-supported, nanoporous carbon scaffolds (NCS). Pt nanoparticles loaded into the NCS have given world-leading oxygen reduction kinetics in PEM fuel cell membrane-electrode-assemblies, while heteroatom+single metal atom doping of both the powders and scaffolds result in highly selective and active CO2 and/or water reduction to produce H2. The NCS sheets have also been employed as flow-through electrodes in redox-flow batteries and as a model material for the study of imbibition of fuids into nanoporous structures.

Contact : Olivier Joubert (ST2E)