Argonne National Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs Alumni

Brenner, James R.
Chemistry Division
Appointment from 9/19/1994 to 9/1997
Supervisor: Christopher Marshall

ANL Research Highlights

My major research highlight at ANL was the development of the smallest Fe, Co, and Ni nanoparticles for catalysis applications.

New Endeavors

Assistant Professor
Florida Institute of Technology
Chemical Engineering Department
National Center for Hydrogen Research
150 West University Blvd.
210 Olin Engineering Bldg.
Melbourne , FL 32901
321-749-3437 (cell)
321-674-7560 (answering machine)
jbrenner@fit.edu
jb012767@aol.com
http://my.fit.edu/~jbrenner/

My current research activities focus on development of nanostructured adsorbents, purifiers, and heat transfer media for the hydrogen, microelectronics, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceutical industries. Since joining the faculty at Florida Tech in 1998, Prof. Brenner has worked in the areas of hydrogen storage, purification, and sensing. Most of his work has focused on development of metal hydride-based (typically Pd alloy) thin films on porous stainless steel (PSS) foam supports for hydrogen purification. Hydrogen purification is critical to the implementation of hydrogen fuel cells, as the fuel cells are intolerant of even parts per million of impurities of sulfur and CO. No one would want their hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to die prematurely of "engine failure" after only a few thousand miles. This work is part of a larger, Florida Tech-wide effort toward a completely hydrogen-driven airplane.

In 2005, Dr. Brenner began work on development of an array of porous carbons around a family of monodispersed silica templates using molecular self assembly methods using sucrose, phenol and formaldehyde, or resorcinol and formaldehyde as the carbon- forming precursors. Upon extraction of the silica using KOH, the pores in the carbons were the imprints of the silica templating agents. In late 2006, Dr. Brenner plans to evaluate these templated porous carbons as novel gas diffusion layers for hydrogen fuel cells. Gas diffusion layers have largely been ignored in fuel cell development and are currently best described as a 2-D mesh of carbon fibers similar to those found in paper. If fuel cells are going to have sufficiently high current densities in order to be practical in vehicles, one problem that must be solved is the relatively poor mass transfer through existing gas diffusion layers. The goal of the templated porous carbon project is to discover an optimal pore size distribution for such gas diffusion layers.

The key themes of this work are:

1. Development and characterization of novel porous materials;

2. Applications involving interstitial compounds such as hydrides, nitrides, and carbides; and

3. Characterization and applications development involving interactions of molecules with surfaces.