Welcome
The overarching goal of the FIRST Energy Frontier Research Center is to address the fundamental gaps in our current understanding of interfacial systems of high importance to future energy technologies, including electrical energy storage (batteries, supercapacitors) and heterogeneous catalysis for solar energy and solar fuels production. The FIRST Center will address three key questions:
- How does the interfacial region differ in structure, dynamics and reactivity from the bulk properties of the fluid and solid phases?
- How do these altered properties couple with complex interfacial textures to influence chemical reactions, ionic and molecular transport and charge transfer within and across the interface?
- How can we control interfacial phenomena by informed design of fluid- and solid-phase components, interfacial geometries, field gradients and environmental parameters?
These questions permeate the fundamental science needed to solve our nation’s long-term energy production, storage and utilization needs, as described in the DOE/BES Basic Research Needs Workshop and Grand Challenge reports. The interaction of fluids with solid substrates controls many chemical processes encountered in nature and industry. However, the atomic-nanoscale structures, reactivities and transport properties of the fluid-solid interface (FSI) are poorly understood for the vast majority of fluid-substrate combinations, particularly at environmental extremes (e.g., high surface charge density, extreme chemical non-equilibrium, high ion/electron fluxes, etc.). This lack of fundamental molecular-level understanding of interfacial phenomena has often lead to Edisonian approaches to the resolution of challenges related to advanced energy technologies, including solar energy utilization, energy storage (batteries and supercapacitors), heterogeneous catalysis, and chemical separations. To address these challenges, we must replace continuum solvent descriptions and hypothetical interfacial structures, with quantitative, fully dynamic, and chemically realistic descriptions of the interactions of electrons, atoms, ions and molecules that give rise to macroscopic interfacial properties. The First Center will bring together a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional team of scientists, postdoctoral associates and students to redefine the FSI and enable predictive understanding and control of interfacial processes. Read More
