Chun-Wei Chen

Chun-Wei Chen

Distinguished Professor

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University

Research Field: Spin polarized catalyst

Prof. Chen is currently a Distinguished professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University (NTU). He is also currently the director of International Graduate Program of Molecular Science and Technology (NTU-MST), National Taiwan University. He has widely contributed to his research on two-dimensional(2D) atomic-layer materials and next-generation energy materials such as organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites. He was a recipient of Outstanding Researcher Award (2011 and 2015) from the National Science Technology Council, Taiwan and Outstanding Scholar Awards, Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (2017). He became the Fellow of School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan in 2022.

Manipulating spin-polarized electrons of electrocatalyst and photocatalyst for energy conversion

Chun-Wei Chen

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan

E-mail: chunwei@ntu.edu.tw

“Spin” has been recently reported as an important degree of electronic freedom to improve the performance of electrocatalysts and photocatalysts. In this talk, I would like to present our recent results on manipulating spin-polarized electrons of electrocatalysts and photocatalysts for energy conversion. In the first part, I would like to show the manipulation of spin-polarized electrons in CsPbBr3 halide perovskite nanoplates (NPLs) to boost the photocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) efficiencies by doping manganese cations (Mn2+) and applying an external magnetic field. [1] The origin of enhanced photocatalytic CO2RR efficiencies of Mn-CsPbBr3 NPLs is due to the increased number of spin-polarized photoexcited carriers by synergistic doping of the magnetic elements and applying a magnetic field, resulting in prolonged carrier lifetime and suppressed charge recombination.

In the second part, I would like to show the enhanced oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activity of two-dimensional van der Waals metal phosphosulfides of FePS3 and FexCo1-xPS3 (x=0-0.45) by controlling their spin exchange interactions. [2] The origin of enhanced OER catalytic activity is mainly resulting from enhanced spin-polarization of Co-doped FePS3 due to the suppression of antiferromagnetic (AFM) orbital orderings and the emergence of weak interatomic ferromagnetism (FM) compared to the pristine FePS3.[2] Both examples show that manipulating spin-polarized electrons of electrocatalysts and photocatalysts provides an effective strategy to boost their energy conversion efficiencies.

Reference:

[1] Cheng-Chieh Lin, Ting-Ran Liu, Sin-Rong Lin, Karunakara Moorthy Boopathi, Chun-Hao Chiang, Wen-Yen Tzeng, Wan-Hsiu Chang Chien, Hua-Shu Hsu, Chih-Wei Luo, Hui-Ying Tsai, Hsin-An Chen,Pai-Chia Kuo, Jessie Shiue, Jau-Wern Chiou, Way-Faung Pong, Chia-Chun Chen,*and Chun-Wei Chen*,” Spin-Polarized Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction of Mn-Doped Perovskite Nanoplates”, Journal of American Chemical Society, 144,15718, (2022)

[2] Manuscript in preparation.