Joint Rutgers Physics-NJIT Physics-MtSE Seminar

October 25th, Friday (*SPECIAL DAY*)

High-throughput discovery of semiconductor photocatalysts for water splitting

Prof. Ismaila Dabo

Materials Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State Univ.

(Materials Physics, Host: Rugters-Newark Physics Dept.)

SPECIAL ROOM at RUTGRES NEWARK CAMPUS

Tea: Smith 206

Seminar: Smith 206 or 241

SPECIAL TIME: 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm with 1 pm tea time

Solar energy is the most abundant energy source available to humankind, but this energy cannot be harnessed on demand due to the variability of sunlight. Artificial photosynthesis overcomes that variability through the direct photocatalytic storage of solar power into chemical fuels. Nevertheless, most of the stable photocatalysts in use today rely on metal oxide semiconductors whose bandgap does not match the solar spectrum. This presentation will discuss the development and validation of a computational–experimental protocol to understand, predict, and optimize photoactive materials that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen with a focus on solar compatibility using electronic-structure methods beyond density-functional theory and on electrochemical stability using quantum-continuum embedding methods.

Biography

Ismaila Dabo graduated with a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the MIT in 2008. After graduation, he became a postdoctoral researcher at the French Institute of Computer Science (INRIA) and a permanent researcher at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, University of Paris-Est (France). He joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State in 2013. His awards include the Corning Faculty Fellowship (2019), Earth and Mineral Sciences Montgomery Teaching Award (2019), NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (2017), and the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Award (2014).