In addition to its annual lectures, ChBE hosts a weekly seminar throughout the year with invited lecturers who are prominent in their fields. Unless otherwise noted, all seminars are held on Wednesdays in the Molecular Science and Engineering Building ("M" Building) in G011 (Cherry Logan Emerson Lecture Theater) at 4:00 p.m. Refreshments are served at 3:30 p.m. in the Emerson-Lewis Reception Salon.

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Conversion of solar into chemical energy on plasmonic metal nanostructures

We will show that composite photo-catalysts combing plasmonic metallic nanoparticles of noble metals and semiconductor nanostructures exhibit improved photo-chemical activity compared to conventional photo-catalytic materials. We will also show that plasmonic silver nanoparticles, optically excited with low intensity visible light, exhibit direct photo-catalytic activity in a number of oxidation reactions. We will discuss underlying mechanisms associated with these phenomena and predictive models that can capture the outcome of chemical transformations on these materials. We propose that this new family of plasmonic metal photo-catalysts could prove useful for many heterogeneous catalytic processes that cannot be activated using conventional thermal processes on metals or photo-catalytic processes on semiconductors. I will show an example of such a process.

After receiving his B.S. degree in physics with a minor in mathematics from West Chester University, Professor Linic obtained his Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering at the University of Delaware in 2003 under the supervision of Professor Mark Barteau. He was the Max Planck Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Matthias Scheffler at the Fritz Haber Institute of Max Planck Society in Berlin (Germany). He started his independent faculty career as assistant professor in 2004 with the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is currently associate professor of chemical engineering. Linic’s research has been recognized through multiple awards including the 2011 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Young Investigator Award awarded by American Institute of Chemical Engineers; the 2009 ACS Unilever Award awarded by the Colloids and Surface Science Division of ACS; the 2009 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award awarded by the Dreyfus Foundation; the 2008 DuPont Young Professor Award; and a 2006 NSF Career Award. Linic has presented more than 80 invited and keynote lectures and published his work in leading journals.