EMMS Programmable, Electrified, & Far-from-equilibrium Reactions- on line

joining link will be added at the end of this section, TALK STARTS AT approx 6:30

Dr. Qi Dong is an Assistant Professor in the Tarpo Department of Chemistry at Purdue University, and a Scialog Fellow for Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Boston College and completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland. Dr. Dong is best known for his discovery of programmable and dynamic electrified approaches for thermochemical synthesis, with applications including ammonia synthesis, methane conversion, plastic upcycling, and more. He has published more than 70 papers and holds over 10 patents related to his innovations. Dr. Dong is also an entrepreneur who co-founded Polymer-X Inc., a startup focused on electrified chemical manufacturing. His current research aims to develop innovative chemical processes and materials that address critical energy, environmental, and sustainability challenges.

Conventional thermochemical syntheses are often powered by combustion of fossil fuels or natural gas, which is both inefficient and environmentally unfriendly. Moreover, near-equilibrium continuous heating via combustion lacks the rapid, precise, and time-resolved control over the temperature profile (i.e., reaction temperature and timescale), causing many reactions to suffer from limited selectivity, low yield, and/or poor catalyst stability. In this talk, I will first introduce an electrified approach to perform thermochemical reactions under far-from-equilibrium conditions. Specifically, we developed a programmable heating and quenching technique that allows for transient and periodic heating times (e.g., 20–110 milliseconds) as well as ultrafast heating and cooling rates (10000 K/s). These dynamic reaction conditions lead to improved selectivity, energy efficiency, and catalyst stability. We demonstrated the utility of this approach in both homogeneous, endothermic CH4 pyrolysis and heterogeneous, exothermic NH3 synthesis. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss how programmable, electrified, far-from-equilibrium processes can enhance material circularity, where we demonstrated efficient plastic and biomass upcycling, as well as the valorization of other waste streams.