Bradley Chmelka

Bradley Chmelka’s research in nanotechnology explores new materials for energy conversion (e.g., batteries, fuel cells). His research is motivated by the need to understand at a molecular level the fabrication and functions of new catalysts, adsorbents, porous ceramics, and heterogeneous polymers. These categories of technologically important materials are linked by their crucial dependencies on local order/disorder, which often governs macroscopic process or device performance. Chmelka is broadly interested in heterogeneous solids, whose sizable variations in local ordering and dynamics have pronounced influences on the adsorption, reaction, optical, or mechanical properties of these materials. The development and application of state-of-the-art techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy allow him to observe many common molecular features among these diverse systems, which provide new insights and design intuition for materials chemistry and engineering objectives.