Welcome to the Walker Lab!

In the Walker Lab, we believe in the value and dignity of all people. We furthermore believe that affordable access to sustainable energy is a basic human right. Accordingly, our group address challenges toward the implementation of technologies that can convert renewable resources (like sunlight, biomass or solid wastes) into lower-carbon-emission fuels and platform chemicals.

Our project areas:

• Polymer-modified catalyst supports, where the polymer grafts form tailored micro-solvation environments which modulate the free energy of solvated reactant and product species to enhance selectivity toward valuable but unstable products (e.g., biomass-derived furanics)
• Zeolite and metal-phosphide based hydropyrolysis catalysts that resist deactivation in the presence of highly concentrated alkali metals commonly found in realistic solid waste resources (e.g., potassium in biomass or magnesium in municipal waste)
• Longer-lasting, earth-abundant electrode formulations for alkaline water electrolyzers and electrochemical synthesis of carboxylic acids from aldehydes

Our research philosophy

We are an experimental catalysis group that takes a fundamental, hypothesis driven approach to research. While we prioritize our specific projects based on clear and present societal needs, our primary objective is to elucidate the fundamental, scientific details governing our active materials’ performance. To that end, we design, synthesize and test catalytic materials with a molecular-level of control; and collaborate extensively with theorists to develop a comprehensive picture of our catalysts under working conditions.