Advancing Electrochemical Properties via Synthetic Design

Assistant Professor

Department of Chemistry

University of Rochester

Friday, April 11 | 11 a.m. | 223 Jarvis

Electrochemistry has emerged as a cornerstone in creating sustainable energy solutions owing to the ability of electrochemical technologies and devices to harness renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, and converting them into usable forms of energy. To harness the full potential of electrochemical technologies in the energy transition away from fossil fuel-based energy systems, the properties and performance of current systems need to be improved and new systems with advanced properties must be developed.

In this talk, I will discuss my group’s efforts in advancing electrochemical properties via synthetic design strategies. First, I will talk about our efforts in the design of temperature-responsive redox-active compounds that are of interest for waste heat harvesting and electrochemical sensing of temperature. Specifically, I will illustrate the design of variable-temperature electrochemical measurements and discuss our recent work on the impact of charge, electronic coupling, and coordination environment on the temperature-dependence of the redox potential in multimetallic molecular compounds.

In the second half of my talk, I will discuss our synthetic efforts in controlling the microenvironment of electrocatalysts through the use of porous framework materials. Specifically, I will talk about our efforts in growing framework films with specific orientations on a range of supports and analysis of their transport properties and electrochemical behavior.

Agnes Thorarinsdottir is a native of Iceland and obtained her BS in chemistry from the University of Iceland in Reykjavik in 2015. She then moved to Evanston, IL to pursue her PhD in chemistry at Northwestern University with Prof. Dave Harris. Her dissertation research centered on employing coordination chemistry approaches to control electronic spins in transition metal compounds in efforts to design bioresponsive magnetic resonance imaging probes and metal–organic magnetic materials. She was awarded the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award and CAS Future Leader Award for this work.

Upon graduation, she joined the laboratory of Prof. Daniel Nocera at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA as a Harvard University Center for the Environment postdoctoral fellow in January 2020. At Harvard, her work focused on addressing challenges in energy science and catalysis through the design of novel electrocatalytic systems. Agnes joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rochester in July 2023 as an assistant professor. Her group works at the interface of inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry, and electrochemistry, where they are developing new electrochemical systems for sustainable production of electricity, fuels, and organic chemicals, and electrochemical sensing. Agnes is a 2024–2026 Scialog Fellow for Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials, co-sponsored by Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.