Our research program designs materials and processes for the storage of renewable electricity and its use in upgrading carbon feedstocks, conversion of waste to fertilizer, and distributed chemical production. Specifically, we develop catalysts that facilitate these reactions in an efficient and selective manner, designing for stability and leveraging earth abundant transition metals when possible. Our design approach stems from fundamental understanding of material surfaces and how they interact with reactants, intermediates, and electrolyte species. We have unique capabilities in both in situ and operando spectroscopy (both vibrational and core level electron-based) to consider materials under conditions relevant to their operation, with particular emphasis in probing the electrode/electrolyte interface. We further employ spectroscopy to link the electronic structure of materials to their activity and selectivity in developing design principles with predictive power.  

Research Areas:

Catalysis, Separations & Reaction Engineering 

Electrochemical Materials & Devices 

Electronic, Magnetic & Photonic Materials

Honors and Awards

ECS Energy Technology Division Supramaniam Srinivasan Young Investigator Award, 2022 

MRS Nelson "Buck" Robinson Science and Technology Award for Renewable Energy, 2022  

International Society of Electrochemistry Electrochemical Materials Science Award, 2022 

DOE Early Career Award, 2022 

Intel Rising Star Faculty Award, 2021  

NSF CAREER award, 2021

Selected Publications

Vitale-Sullivan, M.E. Chang, A. Chou, K.-H. Feng, Z. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Surface transformations of electrocatalysts during the oxygen evolution reaction” Chemical Physics Reviews 4 (2023) 021309. 

Padavala, S.K.M. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Role of hydride formation in electrocatalysis for sustainable chemical transformations” ACS Catalysis 13 (2023) 4554-4551.  

Carvalho, O.Q. Marks, R.^ Nguyen, H.K.K. Vitale-Sullivan, M.E. Martinez, S.C. Árnadóttir, L. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Role of electronic structure on nitrate reduction to ammonium: a periodic journey” JACS 144 (2022) 14809–14818. 

Adiga, P. Nunn, W. Wong, C. Manjeshwar, A.K. Nair, S. Jalan, B. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Breaking OER and CER scaling relations via strain and its relaxation on RuO2” Materials Today Energy (2022) 101087. 

Adiga, P. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Epitaxial oxide thin films for oxygen electrocatalysis: a tutorial review” J Vacuum Sci Technology A 40 (2022) 010801. 

Carvalho, O.Q. Crumlin, E.J. Stoerzinger, K.A. “X-ray and electron spectroscopy of (photo)electrocatalysts: understanding activity through electronic structure and adsorbate coverage” J Vacuum Sci Technology A 39 (2021) 040802. 

Carvalho, O.Q. Adiga, P. Murthy, S.K. Fulton, J.L. Gutierrez, O.Y. Stoerzinger, K.A. “Understanding the role of surface heterogeneities in electrosynthesis reactions” iScience (2020) 101814. 

Stoerzinger, K.A. Wang, L. Ye, Y. Bowden, M. Crumlin, E.J. Du, Y. Chambers, S.A. “Linking surface chemistry to photovoltage in Sr-substituted LaFeO3 for water oxidation”. Journal of Materials Chemistry A 6 (2018) 22170-22178.