Associate Professor
Merkert Center 224
Telephone: 617-552-3605
Email: frank.tsung@bc.edu
The ultimate goal of our research program is to develop high-performance catalysts to respond to the current energy crisis. Our principal strategy is to precisely control the architecture and composition of the materials at the nanoscale by the means of wet chemistry and vapor-phase deposition techniques. The projects are categorized into two directions: energy conversion heterogeneous catalysis and sunlight-driven photocatalysis. The heterogeneous catalysis studies aim to improve the stability, activity, and selectivity of heterogeneous catalysts for important industrial-type catalytic reactions. The target reactions include syngas reactions, biomass reactions, and low-temperature PEM fuel cell reactions. We also perform thorough in-situ catalytic studies over our materials via lab-based and synchrotron-based techniques. The in-situ studies of the evolution of catalysts under the reaction conditions are crucial to understand the catalytic behaviors. The photocatalysis studies aim to establish new synthetic strategies of nano-photocatalysts for optimizing solar-to-chemical energy conversions.