Contact Information
Baker Laboratory Ithaca, NY 14853
am837@cornell.edu
office:(607) 255-4164
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Project Title
Previous School/Work
- Honors/Awards
Project Description:
Nitride projectNitrides are technologically useful materials: TiN as a wear resistant coating, TaN as a diffusion-barrier material in microelectronics, Si3N4 as an oxidation barrier, GaN for a blue light-emitting diode, and AlN for thermally conductive materials as well as an ultraviolet light-emitting diode. In the last two decades, a number of ternary and quaternary nitrides have been reported. Although the chemistry of nitrogen-based materials has been rapidly developed, the reactivities of them have not been examined as much when compared with that of oxides. In addition, the variety of ternary and quaternary compounds containing nitrogen bonding is far from that of compounds containing oxygen.
My work focuses on the synthesis and characterization of ternary and quaternary nitrides, especially for air- and water-stable ones. Reactivity of these nitrides toward various chemicals at near room temperature has been also studied. These nitirides are synthesized by Na flux method or ammonoloysis of precursors. These materials are potentially useful for practical applications, such as superconductors, magnetic materials, catalysts etc., similar to previously known oxide materials.
Intermetallic nanoparticles projectThe synthesis of the nanoparticles with high catalytic activities is an important issue for fuel cells. The DiSalvo group is working on the synthesis of intermetallic nanoparticles, some of which exhibit higher electrocatalytic activities than Pt nanoparticles.
Recently, my collaborators and I developed a novel method to produce PtZn intermetallic nanoparticles by using vapor-solid reactions of Pt nanoparticles with Zn vapor (submitted to Journal of Chemistry Materials). Advantages and disadvantages of this method are as follows:
- No solvents, anions or ligands are present in the process, so little to no contamination from those sources is expected.
- Carbon support significantly migrates particle sintering.
- Rather few elemental metals are as or more volatile than Zn, so the method is not broadly applicable.
The synthesized intermetallic PtZn nanoparticles exhibited higher currents for both formic acid and methanol oxidation than supported Pt nanoparticles with similar particle sizes, but the activity was not as high as that of PtPb.