Matthew Gebbie
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Chemistry·Early-career
Turning carbon dioxide back into useful chemicals with electricity is one route to lowering emissions from the chemical industry, but the reactions are energy-hungry and compete with unwanted side reactions that waste both electricity and carbon. Electrochemical devices consist of two electrodes joined by an electrolyte, the ion-containing liquid between them.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
electrocatalysis
CO2 reduction
carbon monoxide
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2027
What they work on
- Determine how collective assembly of organic ions in ionic liquid electrolytes influences the rate and selectivity of electrochemical CO2 reduction to carbon monoxide.
- Test the hypothesis that electrocatalytic reactivity is dictated by electric field strength within the electric double layer, the nanometer-thick region next to an electrode where ions organize.
- Reveal how ion assembly governs the electrochemical properties of electrode interfaces, using surface forces measurements and spectroscopy to link structure, chemistry and electron transfer.
- Study how ion aggregation can confine co-ions at the interface to tune reactivity, by systematically varying the molecular structures of ionic liquid ions.
More about the research
Research has concentrated on the electrodes, while the electrolyte's role remains poorly understood. This project asks how the way ions organize themselves right at an electrode surface controls which reaction happens, with the goal of converting CO2 selectively into carbon monoxide, a feedstock for many chemical products.
Why it matters
Chemical manufacturing and energy conversion are large sources of carbon emissions. Electrolytes designed at the molecular level to steer carbon dioxide toward carbon monoxide, a building block for many products, could make CO2 recycling more energy- and carbon-efficient. The mechanistic rules developed here could guide electrolyte design across electrochemical technologies, and the project's teacher workshop and public challenge extend training in electrochemistry.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Scott Milner
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Engineering
Develop an integrated method combining constant-potential density functional theory (DFT) and classical molecular dynamics with a full electrochemical double layer to predict activation barriers of proton-electron transfer steps at electrodes.
Feifei Shi
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Chemistry·Early-career
Characterize electrical double layer properties in lithium-ion battery electrolytes by electrocapillarity on a static mercury electrode, measuring interfacial free energy, ion surface excess and potential of zero charge.
Zhange Feng
University of Nevada-Las Vegas, NV·Chemistry
Gather preliminary data on electrochemical energy storage and electrochemical CO2 reduction, which turns carbon dioxide into other chemicals, as groundwork for a full research center.
The school
University of Wisconsin-Madison: 91 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 854 research doctorates a year.
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