Seminar: Single-Metal-Site Catalysts for Sustainable Hydrogen Energy: History, Present, and Future

Our Centre invites you to attend Professor Gang Wu’s seminar “Single-Metal-Site Catalysts for Sustainable Hydrogen Energy: History, Present, and Future” at 11:00am on Monday 10 August 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:

Fossil fuels have been used overwhelmingly across many industrial sectors in recent decades, leading to significant CO2 and other pollutant emissions, low efficiency, and unsustainability. Clean and efficient energy storage and conversion via electrochemical reactions associated with hydrogen, oxygen, and water have attracted substantial attention for energy and environmental sustainability. Among compelling energy technologies, proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are a promising zero-emission power source for transportation, helping mitigate environmental pollution and reduce fossil-fuel dependence. Meanwhile, water electrolyzers have been clearly identified as the sustainable pathway to produce cheap green hydrogen efficiently using renewable electricity. However, current materials, including catalysts, membranes, and ionomers, cannot meet the challenging targets of high efficiency, low cost, and long-term durability for hydrogen fuel cells and water electrolyzers. Developing high-performance catalysts from earth-abundant elements to replace current precious metals is crucial for making these hydrogen technologies viable for large-scale clean energy applications. This talk discusses recent advances, achievements, and perspectives on developing low-cost, high-performance catalysts based on newly emerging atomically dispersed single-metal-site-rich metal-nitrogen-carbon materials for sustainable, clean hydrogen technologies.

Biography:

Gang Wu is the Elvera and William R. Stuckenberg Endowed Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert in electrochemical science and engineering. He completed his PhD at the Harbin Institute of Technology in 2004, followed by postdoctoral training at Tsinghua University, the University of South Carolina and Los Alamos National Laboratory. He later held academic positions at the University at Buffalo before joining Washington University in St. Louis in 2024.

His research focuses on electrocatalysis and catalysis for hydrogen and electrochemical energy technologies, including fuel cells, water electrolysis, CO₂ reduction, electrosynthesis and nitrogen electrochemistry. He is a leading researcher in single-metal-site catalysts, with more than 400 publications and approximately 71,000 citations. Dr Wu has been recognised as a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2018 and was named an ECS Fellow in 2026.