Sanjeev Mukerjee

Full Professor

317 Egan Research Center
Tel: 617.373.2382
Fax: 617.373.8795/8949
s.mukerjee@neu.edu
www.northeastern.edu/leap/
www.northeastern.edu/nucret

Physical/Materials Chemistry

Education:

1994 Ph.D., Texas A&M University
1986 M. Tech., Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

Research Interests

The research activity in Prof. Mukerjee's group is an interdisciplinary approach encompassing the areas of solid state chemistry, spectroscopy, and electrochemistry of electrode materials for electrochemical energy conversion and storage. The current focus is targeted towards technologies for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells and for batteries, these encompass electrocatalysis of oxygen reduction, CO tolerance and methanol oxidation reactions, elevated temperature polymer electrolyte membranes, advanced rechargeable batteries with nickel metal hydrides and lithium insertion electrodes for lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries.

The emphasis is to develop new novel electrode materials for both electrocatalysis as well as intercalation and to investigate mechanisms of electrode processes using advanced synchrotron based in situ techniques. The synchrotron based spectroscopic technique of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) offers unique insights into electrode processes by providing simultaneous electronic and structural information of the electrode materials under actual in situ cell operating conditions. XAS with its element specificity and ability to probe changes in the chemical (oxidation state, corrosion etc.) and the short-range atomic order is especially relevant due to applicability to complex nano-crystalline and amorphous systems. This electrode substrate information is complimented by use of synchrotron based in situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) and IR spectroscopy, both possessing advantages of higher resolution and, in the case of IR spectroscopy, the ability to measure in the far infrared, thus extending the scope and quality of these measurements.

Selected Publications

'Fundamental Mechanistic Understanding of Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Reduction on Pt and Non Pt Surfaces: Acid vs. Alkaline Medium’, N. Ramaswamy and S. Mukerjee, Advances in Physical Chemistry, Vol. 2012, Article ID 491604, (2012).

Dramatically Enhanced Cleavage of the C-C Bond Using an Electrocatalytically Coupled Reaction’ JACS, 134, (20) pp 8655-8661 (2012).

‘Electronic Effects of Substituents on Redox Shuttles for Overcharge Protection on Li-Ion Batteries’, M. N. Ates, C. J. Allen, S. Mukerjee and K. M. Abraham, J. Electrochem. Soc., 159, A1057-A1064 (2012).

'Mass Transport and Oxygen Reduction Kinetics at an Anion Exchange Membrane Interface: Microelectrode Studies on Effect of Carbonate Exchange’, I. Gunasekara, M. Lee, D. Abbott and S. Mukerjee, ECS Electrochemistry Lett., 1(2), F16-19, (2012).

‘Structure of the Catalytic Sites in Fe/N/C-Catalysts for O2-Reduction in PEM Fuel Cells’, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., U. I. Kramm, J. Herranz, N. Larouche, T. M. Arruda, M. Lefevre, F. Jaouen, P. Bogdanoff, S. Fiechter, I. Abs-Wurmbach, S. Mukerjee and J. P. Dodelet, 14, 11673-11688 (2012).

‘Local Structure of Co Doped RuO2 Nanocrystalline Electrocatalystic Materials for Chlornine and Oxygen Evilution’, V. Petrykin, K. Macounova, M. Okube, S. Mukerjee and P. Krtil, (In Press), Catalysis Today (2012).

‘Li2-xFe0.5(V))0.5(PO4)F0.5, a New Mixed Metal Phosphate Cathode Material’, C. J. Allen, S. Mukerjee, and K. M. Abraham, J. Electrochem. Soc., 159, (10) A1659-A1663 (2012).

‘Structure-Property-Activity Correlations of Pt-bimetallic Nanoparticles: A Theoretical Study’, Q. Jia, C. U. Segre, D. Ramaker, K. Caldwell, M. Trahan and S. Mukerjee, Electrochimica Acta., (In Press).

‘Highly Stable Pt-Au@Ru/C Catalyst Nanoparticles for Methanol Oxidation’, Q. He, B. Shyam, N.Masahiko, Y. Xiofang, B. Koel, F. Ernst, D. Ramaker, and S. Mukerjee, J. Phys. Chem., C (In Press).

‘Mitigating Phosphate Anion Poisoning of Cathodic Pt/C Catalysts in Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells’, Q. He, B. Shyam, D. Ramaker, and S. Mukerjee, J. Phys. Chem. C., (In Press).

‘Studies of Li-Air Cells Utilizing Dimethyl Sulfoxide Based Electrolyte’, M. J. Trahan, S. Mukerjee, E. J. Plichta, M. Hendrickson and K. M. Abraham, J. Electrochem. Soc., 160(2), A259, (2013).

Oxygen Reduction Reactions in Ionic Liquids and the Formulation of General ORR Mechanism for Li-Air Batteries,’ C. J. Allen, H. Hwang, R. Kautz, S. Mukerjee, E. J. plichta, M. A. Hendrickson and K. M. Abraham, J. Phys. Chem. C., 116, 20755 (2012).