Abstract

Slurry-based Continuous-Flow Techniques for Advanced Materials Production

Zhongxin Chen, Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

People are seeking greener, cheaper, and more scalable ways to produce advanced chemicals and materials. In this talk, I will introduce our work on slurry-based continuous-flow technologies for making single-atom catalysts, in which individual metal atoms serve as highly efficient active sites. I will first highlight how these catalysts can help produce fine chemicals and support energy-conversion reactions. Then, I will present two new production strategies: electricity-powered slurry electrolysis, which enables controllable catalyst synthesis at much lower cost and with much lower carbon emissions, and light-driven slurry photosynthesis, which allows continuous preparation of ultrahigh-loading single-atom catalysts at the 100-gram scale. By combining flow reactors, real-time characterization, computational simulations, and techno-economic analysis, this work shows a practical pathway toward cleaner, continuous, and scalable manufacturing of future catalysts, chemicals, and materials.