Fahim Rahman

Fahim Rahman

Fahim Rahman
Alumni
frahman@email.sc.edu

The stability of supported catalyst at extreme reaction conditions is one of the major challenges in catalysis. At high temperatures, metals frequently sinter to form large particles that not only decrease catalytic activity but also shorten the catalyst lifetime. Solar driven sulfur-based thermochemical cycles, for water splitting is one of the examples of high temperature process, where H2SO4 decomposes into SO2 and O2 at temperature ≥7500C. Various catalysts already been studied that are very active (short-term), but devastation of catalysts still an issue, highlighting the need for improved stability and durability of these materials.

My research emphasizes on synthesis, characterization and stabilization of nano-materials for selective reactions, especially for high temperature operations. Dry Impregnation (DI), Charged-Enhanced Dry Impregnation (CEDI), Strong Electrostatic Adsorption (SEA), and Electroless Deposition (ED) methods are mostly used in my work for preparing catalysts. To characterize the prepared catalyst, highly sensitive characterization techniques such as XRD, XPS, Chemisorption, Physisorption, STEM etc. are being used. In addition, stabilization has been studied based on various operating conditions in order to achieve desired activity, selectivity and stability.