Abstract: The increasing demand for sustainable fuel and chemical production, coupled with the increasing availability of renewable electricity, is opening up promising avenues in heterogeneous electrocatalysis and chemical engineering. In our research group, we investigate what governs surface reaction rates by examining interactions among the electrocatalyst surface, reactants, and electrolyte environment. In the first part of the talk, we will delve into how adsorption energies influence kinetics of aqueous-phase reduction reactions, such as phenol and other organic hydrogenation. Our work will elucidate the importance of considering solvent displacement in aqueous-phase adsorption. We demonstrate how a simple model can accurately account for these effects for a range of molecules. Furthermore, we discuss simple kinetic models that can describe deactivation of catalysts that lead to anti-Arrhenius behavior as well as non-intuitive synergistic enhancements of reaction kinetics when hydrogenating multiple species. Our aim is to underscore how traditional catalytic methods and gas-phase intuition can contribute to advancing our understanding of liquid-phase catalysis and electrocatalysis. In the second part of the talk, we will discuss the pivotal role of ions in modulating thermodynamics and reaction rates for charge transfer reactions in flow batteries. We will set the stage by
discussing briefly the concept of levelized cost of energy to look at redox flow batteries through technoeconomics. We will then discuss how one can accelerate charge transfer kinetics or increase the voltage of batteries by understanding molecular interactions between metal ions and counter anions.

Bio: Nirala Singh is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He joined the faculty at Michigan in 2018 after completing a Washington Research Foundation Innovation Fellowship at the University of Washington and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with Charlie Campbell and Johannes Lercher. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan and received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2015 with Eric McFarland and Horia Metiu. Singh’s lab uses experimental kinetic measurements, adsorption models, and spectroscopy to understand electrocatalytic reactions for energy storage, sustainable chemical and fuel production, and wastewater remediation. He has served as president of the Michigan Chapter of the North American Catalysis Society and
Alternate Councilor for the ACS CATL Division.