Seminar: Electrocatalysis on High Entropy Materials

Our Centre invites you to attend Professor Jan Rossmeisl’s seminar “Electrocatalysis on High Entropy Materials” at 11:00 am on Tuesday 8 September 2026. The seminar will be held at UNSW Sydney, and online via Teams for those joining us from interstate.

Join us for this free event – everyone is welcome!

Abstract:

The green transition requires discovery and development of new catalyst materials for sustainable production of chemicals and fuels. However, it is difficult to predict a material, which might have a high catalytic activity for a given reaction, therefore the development of catalysts up until now has been driven mainly by trial and error. It would increase the pace of development, if we could predict a range of promising materials or if we at least could understand the limitations of catalysis. In this context high entropy alloys offer a chemical space of possible materials where the composition can be smoothly varied and where the properties also might vary in a seamless manner. This is good news for catalysis as such a smooth space is easier to explore to determine the interesting regions in composition space. Furthermore, the highly heterogeneous nature of a high entropy alloy surface reveals fundamental effects, which are important for chemistry on surfaces in general, but are overlooked in the classic mean field view on catalysis.

Biography:

Jan Rossmeisl is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. He joined the university in 2015 from a position as an Associate Professor at the Danish Technical University. Since 2020, he has been heading a Danish National Research Foundation, Center of Excellence, the Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis, and in 2024, he received an ERC synergy grant along with three others. Jan is coauthor of more than 250 papers and is listed among the Clarivate highly cited researchers. Prof Rossmeisl is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His research focuses on how theory and simulations can provide real and valuable insights into electrochemical reactions. Jan has a close and integrated collaboration with experimentalists, sometimes in a supporting role and sometimes in a leading role. He was an early adopter of quantum mechanical simulations in electrocatalysis. He co-developed the computational hydrogen electrode in 2003, a method that includes the potential by referencing protons and electrons to hydrogen molecules. Despite its simplicity, it has become a staple in the field. His contributions extend to studying vital electrocatalytic systems, including the oxygen evolution reaction crucial for water electrolysis and oxygen reduction. His early papers on oxide catalysts and the universal picture of the reaction have set the benchmark for researchers in the field. Notably, Jan’s exploration of scaling relations in electrocatalysis has provided a lasting framework for understanding catalytic activity trends among different surfaces. This fundamental contribution helps calculate the efficiency limits of catalytic reactions. In 2020, Jan and co-workers won a Danish National Research Foundation center of excellence, the Center for High Entropy Alloy Catalysis, based on the idea of utilizing high entropy alloys as catalysts. High Entropy Alloys represent a paradigm shift in catalysis, yielding not only intriguing catalyst materials but also profound insights into catalysis.