Y-H. Cathy Chin

Y-H. Cathy Chin

B.Sc. (Oklahoma), M.Sc. (Oklahoma), Ph.D. (UC Berkeley)
Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto

Areas of expertise

Applications of multidisciplinary research strategy (kinetic and isotopic techniques, spectroscopy, and theoretical modeling) to advance fundamental, molecular scale understanding of heterogeneous catalytic processes. Understand heterogeneous catalytic science, deciphering the structures and dynamics of catalyst surfaces and connecting these surface events at the atomic scale to their macroscopic catalytic behavior for fuel processing, chemical synthesis, and emission control technologies.

Current Projects

  • Industrial catalytic technology developing: understanding the effects of microenvironment in sustainable chemical and fuel synthesis
  • Bridging thermo- and electro-catalysis in the synthesis of sustainable liquid fuel
  • Connect the structure and reactivity of transition metal catalysts in c-h, c-o, c-c bond activation

Contact

Research Areas

Many of the challenges across the fields of environment, health, medicine, and energy can be addressed through advances in catalytic technology. The goal of my research is to advance catalytic technology by providing a deep understanding of its science at the molecular level. A second goal of this effort is to apply this new knowledge to the design of materials with novel kinetic functions that enable desirable chemical reactions to occur selectively and efficiently.

My research group synthesizes catalytic materials with purpose-built structures and compositions and applies combined methods of kinetics, spectroscopy, microkinetic modeling, and isotopic analysis to probe their dynamics and kinetic consequences in chemical reactions under conditions relevant to industrial practice. These fundamental studies are carried out in parallel with designing and fabricating “chemical-plants-on-a-chip” as compact and light-weight micro-reactor systems for small scale fuel and chemical processing.

Aside from the full range materials synthesis, kinetic evaluation, and spectroscopy capabilities in our laboratory, our group carries out in-situ X-ray absorption studies and perform theoretical calculations at the various national scientific user centers in Canada and the United States. We also collaborate extensively with experts in the complimentary disciplines of surface science and theoretical modeling.

Complete CV available upon request.