(7ef) Data Driven Catalyst Design and Optimization

Data Driven Catalyst
Design and Optimization

Yongchun Hong*

University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley,
CA 94720

*yongchun.hong@berkeley.edu

Research
Interests:

In some heavily documented areas in catalysis,
such as CO oxidation, data (kinetic, theoretical, and spectroscopic)  accumulated
by our pioneers are beyond our capability to thoroughly summarize and survey,
and new data are being reported by our peers at an unprecedented rate. It is
even more challenging to consolidate those often contradictory observations. I
am interested in developing a statistic based tools to analyze the data
reported in the literature to allocate plausible mechanisms beyond those observations
and to propose measurements or calculations to validate or invalidate those
mechanisms with minimum efforts. Such efforts can be translated into standardized
protocols that can be adapted by the catalysis community to facilitate the
communication of observations. The statistical analysis of historical data and
protocols that enable higher quality data acquisition will ultimately lead to a
more comprehensive understanding of underlying mechanisms, that further enables
a rigorous data-driven catalyst design and optimization that relies on the
collective intelligence of the entire community instead of intuition and rigor
of researchers in one of few groups.

Teaching
Interests:

I have supervised 5 undergraduate students and
mentored 1 graduate student during my academic training and I enjoy interacting
with students with diverse backgrounds as well as sharing my knowledge and
experience with them. I would like to develop and teach undergraduate courses
on topics including catalysis, transport phenomena, and reaction engineering. I
am especially interested in developing an undergraduate course that focuses on
the basic concepts and applications of catalysis for students from Chemical
Engineering and Chemistry backgrounds as well as other related disciplines because
I found that such knowledge is essential for ChE and Chem students but also
important for students from other related disciplines in the era of interdisciplinary
cooperations. I would also like to develop and teach graduate courses on
advanced topics including experimental and theoretical techniques in catalysis
research because I think it is very important for graduate students to be aware
of available tools to solve problems they encounter during their research, and
more importantly, to explore new techniques by incorporating concepts and tools
in other areas such as statistics and computer science.

Research Experience:

As a researcher in catalysis, I have 10 years’
research experience in various areas of heterogeneous catalysis, including
catalyst syntheses, characterization, kinetic assessment and modeling, and
molecular simulation. My formal training in catalysis started in Tsinghua
University, focusing on the syntheses of Au and Au-based bimetallic catalysts
and the exploration of their applications in oxidative abatement of CO and
formaldehyde and in the selective hydrogenation of α,β-unsaturated
carbonyl compounds. During my Ph.D. training in Washington State University and
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, I focused on the structure-performance
relationship of Fe-based bimetallic catalyst in hydrodeoxygenation of bio-oil
by correlating the structure information obtained via advanced in-situ
characterization tools such as XAS, XRD, and XPS with the catalyst performance,
and by accessing the mechanistic details based on kinetic inquiries and DFT
simulation. I am currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University
of California, Berkeley, and Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory, pursuing a
fundamental understanding of the catalytic consequence of oxygen binding
properties of metal oxide on the abatement of N₂O in the engine exhaust
via a combination of kinetic inquiries and DFT simulation.

Successful
Proposals: XSEDE (PI), DOE (Participant)

Advisors
and Collaborators: Prof. Enrique Iglesia (UCB, postdoctoral advisor); Prof. Yong
Wang (WSU/PNNL, Ph.D. advisor); Prof. Bo-Qing Xu (THU, M.S. advisor); Dr.
Andrew Getsoian (Ford); Prof. JeanSabin McEwen (WSU); Prof. Jun-Ming Sun (WSU);
Prof. Franklin Tao (KU); Prof. Ayman Karim (VT); Mark Engelhard (PNNL); Dr.
Janos Szanyi (PNNL).

Academic
Services: Reviewer for ACS Catalysis, Applied Catalysis B, Journal
of Molecular Catalysis A, ChemSusChem, RSC Advances, and etc.

Selected Publication:

1.     Hong, Y. C., Zhang, S.
R., Tao, F., Wang, Y., ACS Catal. 7, 3639 (2017).

2.     Wang, X., Hong,
Y. C., Shi, H., Szanyi, J., J. Catal., 343, 185 (2016).

3.    
Hong, Y. C., et al., ACS Catal., 4, 3335 (2014).

4.     Hensley,
A. J. R., Hong, Y.C., et al., ACS Catal., 4, 3381 (2014).

5.     Hong,
Y. C., Sun, K. Q., Han, K. H., Liu, G., Xu, B. Q., Chem. Commun.,
47, 1300 (2011).