SLAC researcher receives DOE Early Career Research Program award

Key Takeaways:

• SLAC staff scientist Adam Nielander has been selected for the Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program award.
• Nielander will tackle environmental remediation of nitrogen-based contaminants in groundwater and soil.
• Using insights from SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource and Stanford-SLAC CryoEM Facilities, he aims to design a device that will convert nitrogen contaminants into harmless nitrogen gas.

Adam Nielander of the Department of Energy (DOE)'s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will receive the prestigious DOE Office of Science Early Career Research Program’s award to support work on advancing energy technologies. 

He is among 67 outstanding early career scientists selected from a talented pool of applicants hailing from U.S. academic institutions and DOE national laboratories. The program provides five years of funding totaling $2.75 million to support research activities by Nielander and his team. 

“Groundbreaking science begins with empowering extraordinary people,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Dr. Darío Gil. “These 67 early career researchers represent the very best of American ingenuity. DOE is proud to invest in their vision as they push the boundaries of knowledge and cement U.S. leadership in the technologies that will define our century.”

“Adam’s unique expertise coupled with SLAC and Stanford University’s advanced facilities will further our understanding of nitrogen-compound chemistry. His project exemplifies the collaborative efforts across SLAC and with our partner Stanford to leverage what we learn today into the energy technologies of the future,” said Chris Tassone, associate lab director for the Energy Sciences Directorate. 

Light-powered catalysts

Growing up in Roanoke, Virginia, Nielander enjoyed science but hadn’t considered research as a career. An opportunity in his first year at college changed his trajectory. “I started doing research in a synthetic inorganic chemistry lab and realized that I loved the feeling of learning something new, something that maybe no one had ever seen before,” he said. He was hooked. 

Nielander went on to earn his doctorate in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology in 2016. That year, he joined SLAC and Stanford as a postdoctoral researcher in chemical engineering. Today he is a staff scientist at SLAC and is affiliated with the SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis, a joint venture between SLAC and the Stanford School of Engineering, where his research centers on understanding the fundamentals of catalysis.

Catalysts are involved in many aspects of our lives, including helping to produce fuel and chemicals such as fertilizers. Fertilizers are important for agriculture, but overuse leads to soil and groundwater contamination by fertilizer byproducts such as the nitrogen compound nitrate. Catalysts can also help transform nitrate into harmless forms of nitrogen like nitrogen gas, which makes up 80% of the air we breathe. 

To design catalysts to break down nitrate into nitrogen gas, researchers need to understand the steps in this complicated transformation process. Nielander’s project aims to figure out these mechanisms and use the insights to design new catalysis systems that operate using light. 

Traditional systems use a substrate, which is typically a precious metal such as platinum, as a support for the catalyst and require an external electrical supply to run. Drawing upon his unique background in driving chemical reactions with light and electric energy, Nielander plans to build devices that contain nanoparticles – each hundreds of times smaller than the diameter of a human hair – that act like tiny solar cells, converting sunlight into electricity to passively power these reactions. “One of the cool things about light is that you can rely on it to show up every day,” Nielander said. 

Another drawback to traditional systems is that a few defects can “defeat the whole system,” said Nielander. To address this problem, he is designing a catalyst system consisting of thousands of nanoparticles, where each operates nearly independently. “If a few particles are defective, they degrade, dissolve or sit among the functioning particles without impacting performance,” he said.

Each nanoparticle substrate is decorated with even smaller nanoparticle catalysts. With so many nanoparticles, interfaces will matter. The unique challenge is figuring out which interface – between the substrate particle and catalyst or between the catalyst and solution containing nitrogen reactants – will limit device performance. 

Additionally, conventional methods of measuring electrical properties and performance will not work with such small particles, so Nielander will need to develop new measurement tools and methods. 

Using SLAC’s electron and X-ray toolkits

To address these challenges, Nielander will turn to specially designed tools in his lab and SLAC’s state-of-the-art facilities such as the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and the Stanford-SLAC CryoEM Center. SSRL’s bright X-rays will reveal how the catalyst materials change and behave over time under realistic operating conditions through a technique called operando X-ray spectroscopy. Cryogenic electron microscopy will offer structural details. The data and observations will help Nielander determine what types of materials and parameters govern catalyst performance. 

Initially, Nielander will explore synthesizing and testing new catalyst materials that are less expensive than platinum. He will use Super Intelligence model predictions, in collaboration with researchers at SLAC and Stanford, to narrow down the enormous number of candidate materials, saving much time. 

“I’m excited about this award and getting a team started. This project is a unique opportunity that brings together facilities from across SLAC and Stanford to do science that hasn’t been done before, to understand why nitrogen compounds behave the way they do,” said Nielander. “The really long-term goal is that 20 years from now, a student taking organic chemistry will read and learn about how photocatalysis works because everyone is using it, from wastewater remediation to chemical and pharmaceutical synthesis.”

SSRL is a DOE Office of Science user facility. The Stanford-SLAC CryoEM Center is supported by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund Transformative High Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy program. 

For media inquiries, please contact media@slac.stanford.edu. For other questions or comments, contact SLAC Strategic Communications & External Affairs at communications@slac.stanford.edu.