Karl Mayrhofer

Abstract von Prof. Dr. Karl Mayrhofer, Helmholtz-Institut Erlangen-Nürnberg für Erneuerbare Energien

Online, time-resolved product analysis in electrocatalysis – the key for fast developments of electro-chemical processes

K.J.J. Mayrhofer, S. Cherevko, B. Berkes, I. Katsounaros, alle Erlangen

Direct conversion between electrical and chemical energy is of major importance for energy storage and the production of added-value chemicals from renewables. Continuous electrochemical reactors, i.e. fuel cells and electrolyzers, for hydrogen production and utilization have been developed to a very mature state over the last decades. Moreover, the fundamentals and limitations of the hydrogen and oxygen electrocatalysis are well understood [1]. In contrast, the electrocatalysis and the technological application of more complex electro-organic reactions for storage or synthesis purposes are still in its infancy. The complex nature of the organic reactions with many different potential intermediates and products, in combination with the manifold parameters that influence electrochemical reactions at interfaces, demands for new analytical approaches to improve our understanding and accelerate developments towards application. In this presentation I will demonstrate our recent methodological developments for online gas and liquid product analysis for the determination of time-resolved reaction selectivity in electro-organic reactions. I will show first results from case studies on CO2 reduction as well as simple hydrogenation reactions. As a natural extension to our previously developed electrochemical high-throughput approach and the coupling to online dissolution determination via online mass spectrometry [2, 3], this combination of methodologies enables now the establishment of a comprehensive picture of complex electrocatalytic reactions in terms of activity, stability and selectivity.

Literature:

[1] Katsounaros et al; Angewandte Chemie – Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 102 – 121.
[2] Cherevko et al; ChemCatChem 2014, 6, 2219 – 2223.
[3] Grote et al; Journal of Catalysis 2016, 343, 248 – 256.

Curriculum Vitae von Prof. Dr. Karl Mayrhofer

Prof. Dr. Karl Mayrhofer, born 1977, studied Technical Chemistry at the TU Vienna and received his PhD in 2006, after specializing on the catalysis of fuel cell reactions in his thesis and during a 2 year research stay in the group of Nenand Markovic at the LBNL in Berkeley. As a post-doc in the group of Prof. Matthias Arenz at the Physical Chemistry Department of the TU Munich he proceeded with fundamental studies of activity and stability of size-selected catalysts as well as applied studies of high-surface area catalysts. In 2010 he became group leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, and headed the research in Electrocatalysis in the department of Prof. Stratmann. In 2015 he was appointed as Professor for Electrocatalysis at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg and director of the newly founded Helmholtz-Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg of the FZ Jülich, which is currently in its ramp-up phase considering staff and building.

zuletzt geändert am: 12.11.2018 16:26 Uhr von MPM