Ahn. Lab at Yonsei Chemistry
Materials for Electrochemical Energy Conversion
02-2123-2634
Electro- and Photoelectro-
Catalyst Synthesis
Arts on electrode
Surfactant-free electrochemical synthesis of metallic nanoparticles via stochastic collisions of aqueous nanodroplet reactors
Conventional solvothermal synthesis of core–shell nanoparticles results in them being covered with surfactant molecules for size control and stabilization, undermining their practicality as electrocatalysts. We study the implementation of the droplet collision method for the size controlled and surfactant-free synthesis of nanoparticles on an electrode.
Electrochemistry of pickering emulsions
Pickering emulsions stabilized by solid particles instead of surfactants are expected to be able to completely control the composition of multi-metallic nanoparticles due to less ion exchange even in collisions between droplets. In addition, the spatial distribution of nanoparticles can be controlled through self-assembly of the Pickering emulsion on the electrode. It is of great significance that we are the first to introduce Pickering emulsion into the electrochemical synthesis method and for the first time revealed that the electrochemical reaction through Pickering emulsion is possible.
Electropolymerization
Polymer particles can be synthesized as desired. We introduce a novel synthetic strategy towards size-controlled nanoparticles of polymers by adaptation of droplet reactor collision electrochemistry. The synthesized particles adhere to the electrode strongly for direct electrochemical use and are also detachable and solvent dispersible upon suitable stimulation. The synthetic protocol was made possible by extension of soft nano-object collision research, and we are extending this strategy further towards various other polymeric nanostructures and metal-polymer hybrid nanomaterials.