Abstract:

Carbon capture by adsorption onto surfaces represents one of the more promising platforms to mitigate anthropogenic emissions of carbon into the atmosphere. The design and analysis of adsorbents is informed by a molecular understanding of how CO₂ interacts with these materials, particularly in the presence of water at temperatures and pressures associated with the panoply of flue gas conditions. This is particularly true in the context of direct air capture with ~420ppm of CO₂. Herein I will present solid-state and pulsed field gradient NMR results that reveal the reaction and transport of CO₂ in these materials, portending pilot scale studies at modest scale.

Bio:

Jeffrey A Reimer’s career spans a diverse array of contributions in expanding and applying spectroscopy for materials research. Professor Reimer’s most recent scholarly works span a range of materials studies, including the structure and proprieties of metal organic frameworks for carbon capture and electrical and optical control of nuclear polarization in semiconductors. Professor Reimer is recognized for these works by election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Physical Society in the Division of Materials Physics, a Fellow of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance, and is a recipient of the Humboldt Research Award from Germany. In addition to his research publications, Professor Reimer is co-author (with T.M. Duncan) of the introductory text Chemical Engineering Design and Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 2^nd edition, 2019), and the text Carbon Capture and Sequestration (with Berend Smit, Curt Oldenburg, Ian Bourg, World Scientific Press, 2013).

Professor Reimer has won virtually every teaching award on the Berkeley campus - at the department, college, physical sciences, and campus level, including the Donald Sterling Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the Physical Sciences, the AIChE Northern California Section Award for Chemical Engineering Excellence in Academic Teaching, and the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003, the highest award bestowed on faculty for their teaching. His introductory textbook (Chemical Engineering Design and Analysis – an Introduction co-authored with T. Michael Duncan), focuses on teaching chemical engineers about the importance of design concepts early in their academic studies.

Professor Reimer was an Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Berkeley from 2000-2005, where he was responsible for UC Berkeley’s academic reviews of its ~100 PhD granting departments. He was Chair of Berkeley’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from 2006-2011, and then again from 2013 to present. He has served many times as the chair of the Academic Senate subcommittee on GSI affairs, working on policies and procedures for insuring that doctoral students are prepared for the teaching profession. Finally, Professor Reimer serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Franklin University Switzerland and served as the Chair of the Governing Board for the Council for Chemical Research in 2015.

Professor Reimer was born in Van Nuys, California and received his bachelor’s degree (with honors) from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He obtained his doctorate in chemical physics from the California Institute of Technology while working with physicists from Xerox PARC examining the chemistry and the physics of solar cell materials. Prior to his appointment at Berkeley, he conducted basic and applied research in semiconductor science and technology as a postdoctoral fellow at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, New York.  Professor Reimer lives in the Bay Area with his wife, a special education teacher, and has four adult children.