HIU Seminar | Prof. Veronica Augustyn
Prof. Veronica Augustyn will be guest during the upcoming HIU Seminar taking place on Friday, 12th September 2025 at 2pm: The talk will be held in person in the large seminar room (230) at the HIU and streamed under the usual Zoom link: The title of the talk will be “From Confinement to Interfacial Phenomena”.
Abstract
The electrochemistry of transition metal oxides in aqueous electrolytes across the entire pH scale inevitably involves protons. These interact with oxide electrodes via numerous reaction mechanisms, including surface adsorption and bulk insertion, electrodissolution and electrodeposition, and water electrolysis. The diversity of electrochemical reactivity involving protons and metal oxide electrodes provides a rich research landscape, while also complicating mechanistic understanding of important aqueous energy storage and conversion processes. In this seminar, I will discuss proton-coupled electrochemical reactions in tungsten oxides, which are among the few non-noble metal oxides that exhibit good stability in strong acids. Our studies probe the effects of proton insertion on metal oxide structural dynamics, optical properties, and interfacial reactivity, as well as the reactivity of protons under confinement within oxide insertion hosts.