Wenzhen Li

Biography

My research interest is in the areas of nanostructured materials for electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications.

Energy issues have been identified as a primary research  challenge for the next fifty years. With major raw oil reserves declining and the world’s population rapidly growing, people will be forced to seek clean, affordable, flexible, technically-viable and sustainable energy resources. Low temperature fuel cells have been very attractive for future power sources for automobile, homes and portable electronics. Compared to hydrogen fuel, ethanol is a renewable energy source, because the energy is generated using a huge, naturally replenished resource - Sunlight. Because the kinetics of both the ethanol oxidation at the anode and the oxygen reduction at the cathode can be greatly facilitated in a high pH medium, and non-Pt catalysts are viable in alkali, direct ethanol alkaline membrane fuel cells (DEAMFCs) are very promising as next-generation sustainable electrochemical energy devices, and they are our current research focus.

Our current research interests include: 1) nanostructured precious group metal (PGM) catalysts with high intrinsic electrocatalytic activity to reduction reaction of oxygen, and oxidation reaction of biomass-derived alcohols . We will focus on reducing the PGM loading and improving the catalyst durability. 2) Pd-based nanostructures for ethanol oxidation in alkaline electrolyte, we will design novel Pd-catalysts with high selectivity (to CO2 ) and long-term high performance in alkaline electrolyte. 3) Inexpensive non-PGM catalysts and novel support materials, such as Ag, carbide, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and their composites. Besides activity, we are specially interested in their stability and durability in ‘real’ low temperature fuel cell operations.

In addition, we are also interested in rational design, precise  synthesis and electrochemical in-situ characterization of multimetallic nanostructures, such as nanotube, nanocube, nanowire, nanocable (1-D axial core-shell structure), etc. for potential electrochemical energy conversion and storage applications.

Our research is currently supported by ACS-PRF and NSF