Educational Background:

PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1980 MS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1976 BS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1975 Professor Abruña, Emile M.Chamot Professor of Chemistry, completed his graduate studies with Royce W. Murray and Thomas J. Meyer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980 and was a postdoctoral research associate with Allen J. Bard at the University of Texas at Austin. After a brief stay at the University of Puerto Rico, he came to Cornell in 1983. Professor Abruña is an AAAS Fellow and recipient of a Presidential Young Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship, the Tajima Prize of the International Society of Electrochemistry, a J. W. Fulbright Senior Research Fellow-ship and an Iberdrola Fellowship.

Awards:

• C. N. Reilley Award from the     Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry, 2008 • Elected Member of the American     Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2007 • American Chemical Society Award     for Electrochemistry, 2007 • AAAS Fellow, 2006- • Fellow Ecole Normal Superieuere, Paris 2002 • Fellow Ministry of Education and     Culture, Spain 2000-2001, 1991-1996 • Honorary Member, Dept. of Chem.,     Wuhan Univ. Wuhan, PRC 1999- • Fellow Generalitat Valenciana, 1999-2000 • Iberdrola Fellow, 1998-2002 • J. W. Fulbright Senior Fellow, 1997 • J. S. Guggenheim Fellow, 1992-1993 • Tajima Prize of the International     Society of Electrochemistry, 1987 • Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, 1987-1989 • Presidential Young Investigator Award, 1984-1989

Research Description:

Our research effort takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of electrochemical phenomena. We employ electrochemical techniques as probes of a variety of chemical systems, and we use other techniques to address problems of electrochemi-cal interest.

Specific areas of current interest include:

1. Fuel cells:
• The use of ordered intermetallics, such as PtPb (Fig. 1; STEM image: Fig. 3), for the electrocatalytic oxidation of formic acid (Figure 2), methanol, ethanol and other small organic molecules of potential utility as fuels in fuel cells.


Figure 3

• Use of Differential Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry for mechanistic studies related to fuel cells.

• Combinatorial exploration of fuel cell electrocatalysts (Figure 4).

Figure 4

2. Extended structures based on transition metal complexes:
• Synthesis and characterization (via electrochemistry, spectroscopy and STM; Fig. 5) of extended structures based on transition metal complexes of bridging ligands.

Figure 5

3. Molecular Electronics:
• The synthesis of nanometric building blocks and their use in molecular electronic devices. (Fig. 6)

Figure 6

• The synthesis and study of molecular switch materials that are both redox and optically active. (Fig. 7)

Figure 7

4. Conjugated Polymers:
• The use of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (Fig. 8) on conducting polymers with a newly developed interpretation method to be able to accurately measure the doping levels of conducting polymers. (Fig. 9)

Figure 8   Figure 9

5. Li-ion Batteries:
• Molecular design, synthesis, and the characterization for organosulfur-based high-energy compounds as a cathode material for lithium-ion batteries and lith-ium-ion capacitors (supercapacitors)
• Mechanistic investigation of electrocatalytic effect of conducting polymers to-wards the redox reactions of organosulfur compounds

Figure 10

Selected Publications:

Zhong, Yu-Wu; Vila, Neus; Henderson, Jay C.; Flores-Torres, Samuel; Abruña, Héctor D. Dinuclear Transition-Metal Terpyridine Complexes with a Dithienylcyclo-pentene Bridge Directed toward Molecular Electronic Applications. Inorganic Chemistry (Washington, DC, United States) 2007, 46(25), 10470-10472.

Parks, J. J.; Champagne, A. R.; Hutchison, G. R.; Flores-Torres, S.; Abruña, H. D.; Ralph, D. C. Tuning the Kondo Effect with a Mechanically Controllable Break Junction. Physical Review Letters 2007, 99(2), 026601/1-026601/4.

Zhuang, Lin; Jin, Jing; Abruña, Héctor D. Direct Observation of Electrocatalytic Synergy. Journal of the American Chemical Society 2007, 129(36), 11033-11035.

Abruña, Héctor D.; Matsumoto, Futoshi; Cohen, Jamie L.; Jin, Jing; Roychowdhury, Chandrani; Prochaska, Mark; van Dover, R. Bruce; DiSalvo, Frank J.; Kiya, Yasuyuki; Henderson, Jay C.; Hutchison, Geoffrey R. Electrochemical energy generation and storage. Fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries. Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan 2007 80(10), 1843-1855.

Cohen, Jamie L.; Volpe, David J.; Abruña, Héctor D. Electrochemical determination of activation energies for methanol oxidation on polycrystalline platinum in acidic and alkaline electrolytes. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 2007, 9(1), 49-77.

Moran-Mirabal, Jose M.; Slinker, Jason D.; DeFranco, John A.; Verbridge, Scott S.; Ilic, Rob; Flores-Torres, Samuel; Abruña, Héctor; Malliaras, George G.; Craighead, H. G. Electrospun Light-Emitting Nanofibers. Nano Letters 2007, 7(2), 458-463.

Slinker, Jason D.; DeFranco, John A.; Jaquith, Michael J.; Silveira, William R.; Zhong, Yu-Wu; Moran-Mirabal, Jose M.; Craighead, Harold G.; Abruña, Héctor D.; Marohn, John A.; Malliaras, George G. Direct measurement of the electric-field distribution in a light-emitting electrochemical cell. Nature Materials 2007, 6(11), 894-899.