Education
1989 Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin

1983 MS  San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

1978 B.S.  San Jose State University, San Jose, California

Research Interests

The central theme of Prof. Smotkin’s group is the discovery of better materials for clean energy sources and processes. This includes the development of catalysts and supports for electrochemical reactors for synthesis, power generation and environmental remediation.  This multidisciplinary effort includes development of synthetic methods, spectroscopic analysis and computational modeling of nanostructured materials.  High throughput analytical instrumentation is developed for comparative and fundamental studies of catalyst libraries. Towards these ends, Laser Activated Membrane Introduction Mass Spectrometry (LAMIMS) has been developed for

high throughput fundamental studies of heterogeneous catalysts and Array Electrochemical Reactors have been developed for evaluation of electrocatalysts.     

We also continue to develop potential dependent Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction methods to probe the buried catalyst interfaces of operating electrochemical reactors. 

A relatively new field developed in the Smotkin group is the study of non-Faradaic processes occurring at electrode surfaces. These processes include acid catalyzed organic transformations at electrode surfaces that do not involve electron transfer from the electrode to the reactant. Solvent free reactors such as polymer electrolyte membrane electrochemical reactors are used for power generation and for development of new organic transformations at electrode surfaces.

Selected Publications

Stanislav Stoupin, Eun-Hyuk Chung, Soma Chattopadhyay, Carlo. U. Segre, Eugene S. Smotkin, “Pt and Ru x-ray absorption spectroscopy of Pt-Ru anode catalysts in operating direct methanol fuel cells” J. Phys. Chem. B., 110 (20), 9932 -9938 (2006).  

Eugene S. Smotkin, Junhua, Jiang, Amit Nayar, Renxuan Liu, “High-throughput screening of fuel cell electrocatalysts” Applied Surface Science, 252; 2573-2579 (2006).

Maria Salazar, Eugene Smotkin, “Electrochemically promoted olefin isomerization reactions at polymer electrolyte fuel cell membrane electrode assemblies” Journal of Applied Electrochemistry, 38(11), 1237-1240 (2006).