IIN Frontiers in Nanotechnology Seminar Series – Jeffrey Long

Professor Jeffrey Long

Department of Chemistry
University of California, Berkeley
Hosted by the Ryan Fellows

Abstract

Owing to their high surface areas, tunable pore dimensions, and adjustable surface functionality, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) can offer advantages for a variety of gas storage and gas separation applications.  In an effort to help curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, we are developing new MOFs for use as solid adsorbents in post- and pre-combustion CO₂ capture, and for the separation of O₂ from air, as required for oxy-fuel combustion. In particular, MOFs with open metal cation sites or diamine-functionalized surfaces are demonstrated to provide high selectivities and working capacities for the adsorption of CO₂ over N₂ under dry flue gas conditions. Multicomponent adsorption measurements further show compounds of the latter type to be effective in the presence of water, while calorimetry and temperature swing cycling data reveal a low regeneration energy compared to aqueous amine solutions. MOFs with open metal sites, such as Mg₂(dobdc) (dobdc^4– = 2,5-dioxido-1,4- benzenedicarboxylate), are highly effective in the removal of CO₂ under conditions relevant to H₂ production, including in the presence of CH₄ impurities. Redox-active Fe²⁺ sites in the isostructural compound Fe₂(dobdc) allow the selective adsorption of O₂ over N₂ via an electron transfer mechanism. The same material is demonstrated to be effective at 45 °C for the fractionation of mixtures of C1 and C2 hydrocarbons, and for the high-purity separation of ethylene/ethane and propylene/propane mixtures. Finally, it will be shown that certain structural features possible within MOFs, but not in zeolites, can enable the fractionation of hexane isomers according to the degree of branching or octane number.

Biography

Professor Jeffrey R. Long received a B.A. degree summa cum laude in Chemistry and cum laude in Mathematicsfrom Cornell University in 1991, performing research under the guidance of Prof. Roald Hoffmann.  He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry with Prof. Richard H. Holm at Harvard University in 1995, and carried out postdoctoral studies with Prof. A Paul Alivisatos at the University of California, Berkeley in 1996-1997.  He is currently a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and Senior Faculty Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  In addition, he served as Chair of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 2012 and a founding Associate Editor of Chemical Science, the flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and he is presently Director of the Center for Gas Separations Relevant to Clean Energy Technologies and lead-PI for the Berkeley Hydrogen Storage Program.  In 2014, he co-founded Mosaic Materials, Inc., a company devoted to the development of metal-organic frameworks for low-energy gas separations.

Prof. Long has received a number of awards for his research and teaching, including the Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program R&D Award for Hydrogen Storage (2016); a Bakar Fellowship (2016-2020), a UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly Faculty Mentor Award (2014), the Inorganic Chemistry Lectureship Award (2014), a Miller Research Professorship (2011), two National Science Foundation Special Creativity Awards (2003 and 2009), the National Fresenius Award (2004), a TR100 Award (2002), an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2001), and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000).  With over 250 publications (earning more than 40,000 citations) and 22 total patents or patent applications, his research interests include the synthesis of inorganic complexes, clusters, and solids with unusual electronic and magnetic properties, the development of microporous metal-organic frameworks for applications in gas storage, chemical separations, catalysis, and energy storage, as well as the investigation of new molecular catalysts for electro- and photochemical water splitting.