2013 Spring Symposium

CCP Stu­dent Poster Com­pe­ti­tion Win­ner

 
Thomas R. Gor­don
Depart­ment of Chem­istry
Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia
Philadel­phia, PA 19104
thomasrgordon@​gmail.​com
 
Abstract — Con­trol over faceting in nanocrys­tals (NCs) is piv­otal for many appli­ca­tions, but most notably when inves­ti­gat­ing cat­alyt­ic reac­tions which occur on the sur­faces of nanos­truc­tures. Tita­ni­um diox­ide (TiO₂) is one of the most stud­ied pho­to­cat­a­lysts, but the depen­dence of its activ­i­ty on mor­phol­o­gy and phase has not yet been sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly inves­ti­gat­ed, due to a lack of appro­pri­ate mod­els. We report the non­aque­ous sur­fac­tant-assist­ed syn­the­sis of high­ly uni­form TiO2 NCs with tai­lorable mor­phol­o­gy in the 1–100 nm size régime. Meth­ods are described to engi­neer the per­cent­age of {001} and {101} facets in anatase and to con­trol the mor­phol­o­gy and phase of TiO₂ nanorods. The sur­fac­tants on the sur­face of the NCs, which direct growth of uni­form par­ti­cles, may be removed through a sim­ple lig­and exchange pro­ce­dure, allow­ing for the shape depen­dence of pho­to­cat­alyt­ic hydro­gen evo­lu­tion to be stud­ied using monodis­perse TiO₂ NCs pre­pared with­out any high tem­per­a­ture anneal­ing. Such high­ly uni­form nanocrys­tals may act as mod­el sys­tems to inves­ti­gate the influ­ence of faceting on a vari­ety of process­es under oper­at­ing con­di­tions.
 

Biog­ra­phy — Dr. Thomas R. Gor­don recent­ly earned his Ph.D in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, under the direc­tion of Prof. Christo­pher B. Mur­ray, after defend­ing his the­sis in Feb­ru­ary 2013, enti­tled “Direct­ed Syn­the­sis and Dop­ing of Wide Bandgap Semi­con­duct­ing Oxides.” He received a B.S. in Chem­istry with a minor in Math­e­mat­ics (sum­ma cum laude) from Lebanon Val­ley Col­lege. Dr. Gor­don is the 2006 recip­i­ent of the Dr. Judith Bond Endowed schol­ar­ship win­ner award­ed to out­stand­ing chem­istry major attend­ing a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty in south­east­ern Penn­syl­va­nia. His research inter­ests include the pre­cise syn­the­sis of nanocrys­talline mate­ri­als and their appli­ca­tions in catal­y­sis, pho­to­catal­y­sis, and plas­mon­ics. In June 2013, he will begin work as a post­doc­tor­al fel­low in the lab­o­ra­to­ry of Prof. Ray­mond Schaak at Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty as a mem­ber of the Mate­ri­als Research Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Cen­ter (MRSEC). He is the author or co-author of 9 sci­en­tif­ic pub­li­ca­tions.