The ultimate goal of Professor Tsung’s research program is to develop high-performance catalysts to respond to the current energy crisis. His principal strategy is to precisely control the architecture and composition of the materials at the nanoscale by the means of wet chemistry and vapor-phase deposition techniques. The projects are categorized into two directions: sunlight-driven photocatalysis and energy-synthesis heterogeneous catalysis. The photocatalysis studies aim to establish new synthetic strategies of nano-photocatalysts for optimizing solar-to-chemical energy conversions. He focuses on sunlight-driven water splitting and carbon dioxide photoreduction. The heterogeneous catalysis studies aim to improve the stability, activity, and selectivity of heterogeneous catalysts for important industrial-type catalytic reactions. The target reactions include syngas reactions, biomass reactions, and low-temperature PEM fuel cell reactions. He also performs thorough in-situ catalytic studies over our materials via lab-based and synchrotron-based techniques. The in-situ studies of the evolution of catalysts under the reaction conditions are crucial to understand the catalytic behaviors.

Representative Key Publications:

Tsung, C.-K.; Kuhn, J. N.; Huang, W. Y.; Aliaga, C.; Hung, L. I.; Somorjai, G. A.; Yang, P. D. "Sub-10 Nm Platinum Nanocrystals with Size and Shape Control: Catalytic Study for Ethylene and Pyrrole Hydrogenation" Journal of the American Chemical Society 2009, 131, 5816

Tsung, C.-K.; Fan, J.; Zheng, N. F.; Shi, Q. H.; Forman, A. J.; Wang, J. F.; Stucky, G. D. "A General Route to Diverse Mesoporous Metal Oxide Submicrospheres with Highly Crystalline Frameworks" Angewandte Chemie-International Edition 2008, 47, 8682

Tsung, C.-K.; Kou, X. S.; Shi, Q. H.; Zhang, J. P.; Yeung, M. H.; Wang, J. F.; Stucky, G. D. "Selective Shortening of Single-Crystalline Gold Nanorods by Mild Oxidation" Journal of the American Chemical Society 2006, 128, 5352