Department Seminar Series: Debra Rolison, Ph.D.
This event is part of the CBEE DEPARTMENT SEMINAR SERIES
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CBEE Department Seminar Series
Debra Rolison, Ph.D.
Surface Chemistry Branch, US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC
Title:
An Ideal Architected Catalytic Platform
Abstract:
One of the earliest applications of aerogels—ultralow density, ultraporous, nanoscale networked materials—was their use in heterogeneous catalysis as high surface–area supports (in the 1930s). Aerogels integrate multiple transport and reactivity functions within one architected platform that couples through-connected electrical wiring (electron and ion) along the solid covalently bonded network (with interconnectivity over macroscale distances) to facile molecular flux through the co-continuous pore network (approaching open-medium diffusion rates). Aerogels remove transport barriers characteristic of the agglomerated nanometric & micrometric particles representative of traditional heterogeneous catalysts. Ceria aerogel–based catalysts demonstrate unprecedented selectivity, durability, and activity for preferential oxidation of carbon monoxide in H2 feedstreams (even in the presence of water) and water–gas shift without methanation. The epoxide routes to ceria sol–gels also afford a flexible means to incorporate additional elements within the fluorite crystal habit. We use the versatility of this synthetic protocol to produce high-entropy rare-earth oxide aerogels (HERAs) containing four or more rare-earth, d-block transition metals, and first-row transition metals in a single-phase oxide aerogel. Using a base HERA composition of (Y0.25Zr0.25Ce0.25Hf0.25)O2, we demonstrate that the compositional entropy allows incorporation of Fe into a single-phase (Fe0.2Y0.2Zr0.2Ce0.2Hf0.2)O2 aerogel while FexCe1–xO2 sol–gel formulations are unstable. The (FeYZrHfCe)O2 HERA catalyzes reverse water–gas shift (CO2 + H2 ® CO + H2O) selectively without forming methane as a byproduct. Adding 2.5 at.% Ni during synthesis creates a dual-site HERA catalyst with higher activity while retaining selectivity and yielding 90-h onstream durability.
Biography:
Debra Rolison heads the Advanced Electrochemical Materials section at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Her team designs, synthesizes, characterizes, and applies three-dimensionally structured, ultraporous, multifunctional, hold-in-your-hand nanoarchitectures for such rate-critical applications as catalysis, energy storage and conversion, and sensors.
Rolison was a Faculty Scholar at Florida Atlantic University (1972–1975; B.S. in Chemistry). She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1980) with Prof. Royce W. Murray. She joined NRL as a staff scientist in 1980.
Rolison is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Women in Science, the Materials Research Society, and the American Chemical Society. Among her major awards, she received the Allan J. Bard Award (2025), William H. Nichols Medal (2018), the E.O. Hulburt Award (2017), Department of the Navy Dr. Dolores M. Etter Top Scientist & Engineer Team Award (2016), Charles N. Reilley Award of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry (2012), ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials (2011), and Hillebrand Prize of the Chemical Society of Washington (2011).
Her editorial advisory board service includes (current): Advanced Energy Materials & ACS Applied Energy Materials; (past) Chemical Reviews, Analytical Chemistry, Langmuir, Nano Letters, Annual Review in Analytical Chemistry, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, and Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. Rolison also writes and lectures widely on issues affecting women (and men!) in science, including proposing Title IX assessments of science and engineering departments. She is the author of over 300 articles and holds 54 U.S. patents.
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