Szymczak, Nathaniel
Faculty
Associate Professor of Chemistry, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Biography
With a rising global population and increasing industrialization, the need to establish new and energy-efficient chemical conversion schemes is vital. Investigations into the discovery and implementation of innovative conversion schemes could lead to new ways by which chemical feedstocks are processed and recycled with minimal energy input. However, many aspects of the underlying science behind such strategies must be developed prior to large-scale implementation. To address these issues, the Szymczak research program is uncovering new strategies to develop catalytic methods for energy recycling and delivery. The group uses synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry to develop new catalytic methods for energy delivery, storage and recycling. They currently have two main foci: (1) the regeneration of spent hydrogen storage materials, (2) and the design of new synthetic catalysts for small molecule activation.