The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering presents the fall 2023 seminar series with guest speaker Mohammad Asadi, an assistant professor in the ChBE department, who will give a presentation on “Advanced Materials to Decarbonize Future?” This event will take place on Wednesday, October 11, from 3:15–4:30 p.m. in the Perlstein Hall Auditorium (room 131). This event is open to the public.
Abstract
One of the greatest scientific and engineering challenges of the twenty-first century is to develop sustainable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels that are currently the main sources of global energy. Among various emerging technologies, energy conversion and storage systems have shown tremendous potential to be the alternative of fossil fuels due to their ability to harvest renewable energy (e.g., solar and wind in the form of chemical bonds). In general, energy can be stored or converted into chemical bonds through photo/electrochemical process, for example batteries, carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction (OER and HER) and utilized as the main energy source in the form of electricity or fuels. Recent scientific advancements and technological innovations have driven the rapid development of sustainable energy technologies. However, a real activity improvement for clean energy technologies requires novel and advanced materials with unique properties (e.g., electronic, structural, and physical properties) that are currently a bottleneck.
My research goal is to develop cost-effective and energy-efficient sustainable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels that are limited in source and have negative environmental impacts. To achieve this goal, my research group will have a dual focus: (i) fundamental research in the various aspects of advanced materials development and photo/electrocatalysis science along with, (ii) leading innovation in the area of device fabrication. In this seminar, I will present our recent activities on developing cost-effective and energy-efficient energy conversion and storage technologies as promising alternatives to replace fossil fuels and decarbonize the United States’ economy.
Bio
Mohammad Asadi joined the chemical engineering department at Illinois Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2017. Asadi completed his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at University of Chicago (UIC) and received his Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology. He spent seven years working in the oil and gas industry before joining UIC. He has authored and co-authored 30 peer-reviewed publications in journals such as Science, Nature Energy, Nature, Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, ACS Nano, and Nature Communications, and has 13 U.S. patents and patent applications. He has more than 5000 citations (h-index 20) in the areas of advanced functional materials, catalysis science, electrochemical energy storage, and energy conversion systems.