Mellichamp Academic Initiative in Sustainability at UC Santa Barbara
Sustainable Materials and Product Design
SUSTAINABLE
MANUFACTURING
OUR FOCUS ON MANUFACTURING
A Focal Point for the Engineering of Sustainable Processes and Design
Dr. Christopher
Mellichamp Chair
Sustainable Manufacturing
The Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Manufacturing, Professor Christopher, along with his research group and in collaboration with the other Mellichamp chairs focuses on the development and understanding of heterogeneous catalysts that promote sustainable chemical production and utilization. Together they investigate ways to lower environmental impacts of chemical manufacturing and production processes.
Dr. Christopher is currently exploring the mechanistic analyses and design of supported metal heterogeneous catalysts. His work analyzes metal species ranging from colloidally synthesized nanoparticles to atomically dispersed metal atoms on oxide supports. Through synthesis, characterization, theoretical interrogation and kinetic analysis his work provides mechanistic insights into catalyzed processes with a precision rivaling surface science analyses. These approaches have been applied to catalytic processes for commodity chemical production, fuel precursor production, and pollution abatement driven by thermal energy and photon excitation, all with the aim of promoting the sustainability of these processes.
RECENT GREEN CHEMISTRY PUBLICATIONS
Synthesis of Heteroatom Rh–ReOx Atomically Dispersed Species on Al2O3 and Their Tunable Catalytic Reactivity in Ethylene Hydroformylation
Insoo Ro, Mingjie Xu, George W. Graham, Xiaoqing Pan, and Phillip Christopher.Synthesis of Heteroatom Rh–ReOx Atomically Dispersed Species on Al2O3 and Their Tunable Catalytic Reactivity in Ethylene Hydroformylation. ACS Catalysis 2019 9 (12), 10899-10912. DOI: 10.1021/acscatal.9b02111
Light-driven methane dry reforming with single atomic site antenna-reactor plasmonic photocatalysts
Zhou, L., Martirez, J.M.P., Finzel, J. et al. Light-driven methane dry reforming with single atomic site antenna-reactor plasmonic photocatalysts. Nat Energy 5, 61–70 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0517-9
Rh single atoms on TiO2 dynamically respond to reaction conditions by adapting their site
Tang, Y., Asokan, C., Xu, M. et al. Rh single atoms on TiO2 dynamically respond to reaction conditions by adapting their site. Nat Commun 10, 4488 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12461-6