Professors James Blakemore and Ward Thompson named February 2024 Sutton Family Research Impact Award recipients
James Blakemore (left), Elle Bartlett (middle), and Ward Thompson (right) are continuing collaborative work on CXEs at KU based on the published work, and are pictured here on April 2, 2024.
The Department of Chemistry congratulates Professors James Blakemore and Ward Thompson on receiving the February 2024 Sutton Family Research Impact Award!
The Sutton Award is a monthly competition among chemistry faculty. Every month, the Chemistry Department Chair and Associate Chairs review the peer-reviewed papers published by chemistry faculty from the three previous months to select a winner. The recipient receives a $500 cash prize and is featured on the departmental website.
For a full list of winners, visit our Sutton Family Research Impact Award webpage.
Mechanistic Basis of Conductivity in Carbon Dioxide-Expanded Electrolytes: A Joint Experimental-Theoretical Study
By Christian K. Nilles, Ashley K. Borkowski, Elizabeth R. Bartlett, Matthew A. Stalcup, Hyun-Jin Lee, Kevin C. Leonard, Bala Subramaniam, Ward H. Thompson, and James D. Blakemore
Published in Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2024, 146, 2398-2410. http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c08145
The conversion of carbon dioxide into more useful chemicals is attracting significant attention in fundamental and applied research. Electrochemical conversion is one of the most popular approaches for accomplishing the needed reactions, but few practical systems have been developed to date. In part, this may be attributed to the difficulty of bringing high concentrations of carbon dioxide into contact with electrified interfaces; this issue stems from the limited solubility of carbon dioxide in most solvents, but especially water.
In this new work featured as the February 2024 Sutton Award article, the author team led by James Blakemore and Ward Thompson based in the KU Department of Chemistry as well as the KU Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis (CEBC) utilized a joint experimental and theoretical approach to study how dissolution of high concentrations of carbon dioxide into organic electrolytes affects the conductivity of those electrolytes. Such electrolytes, termed Carbon dioxide-eXpanded Electrolytes (CXEs) and formed in organic electrolytes under pressures of carbon dioxide, are a unique invention originated at KU, having been first reported by James Blakemore, along with Kevin Leonard and Bala Subramaniam, in 2019.
The results of this new study lay a foundation for more extensive studies that will address the catalytic properties of these media from new perspectives, including further joint experimental-theoretical investigations that are now underway. The new studies are expected to generate findings that speak to the opportunities that CXEs present for enhancing electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into more useful chemicals.
Dr. Christian Nilles (left) and Dr. Ashley Borkowski (right) were the lead student authors on this month’s winning paper. Both are now postdoctoral appointees at Argonne National Laboratory and are pictured here on April 4, 2024.