A Brief introduction of the Speaker
Dr. Zhiqun Lin is currently Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Iowa State University as an Assistant Professor in 2004 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010. He moved to Georgia Institute of Technology in 2011, and become a Professor in 2014. He relocated to National University of Singapore in 2022. His research interests include solar cells, photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, batteries, block copolymers, conjugated polymers, functional nanocrystals, hierarchically structured and assembled materials, and surface and interfacial properties.
Abstract
The ability to create highly efficient, low-cost, and stable electrocatalysts, and to craft metal single atom catalysts (SACs) in which transition metal atoms are asymmetrically coordinated with organic heteroatoms, represents important endeavors toward accelerating sluggish water-oxidation kinetics and developing high-performance SACs over symmetrically coordinated counterparts, respectively. In this talk, I will discuss on unravelling photothermal and magnetic field effects of spinel nanoparticles to promote dynamic active sites generation, thereby markedly enhancing their oxygen evolution reaction activity. Subsequently, I will present superior bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction/oxygen evolution reaction, enabled by interfacing single Fe atoms between wrinkled MoS2 and N-doped carbon nanospheres. They render robust wearable zinc-air batteries with high capacity and outstanding cycling stability. Finally, I will introduce confining asymmetrically coordinated Fe single atoms with nitrogen and phosphorus atoms within rationally designed, spoke-like, mesoporous carbon scaffolds to boost ring-opening reaction of epoxides, leading to production of an array of pharmacologically-important β-amino alcohols.
