Jordi Cabana
Professor, Department of Chemistry, UIC
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About
Professor Cabana jointly supervises CDAC students working in Thrust 3: Complex Materials, Thrust 4: Extreme Chemistry, Thrust 7: Superconductivity and Electronic and Magnetic Phenomena.
Our group is generally interested in the physical and inorganic chemistry of materials, with emphasis on redox and transport properties. We aim to provide chemistry solutions to technological problems in energy applications, with current focus on electrochemical energy storage, which is critical in the development of a green economy based on renewable sources. Our group combines approaches from classical solid state chemistry with nanoscience, with the goal of contributing to a unified field, where, for instance, synthesis of complex new compounds can rapidly be transitioned to their nano/mesoscale tailoring.
Our interests in inorganic chemistry lie in significantly improving our ability to synthesize compositionally and morphologically complex, stable, functional materials. One of our current thrusts involves increasing the applicability of colloidal synthesis of nanocrystals to high levels of chemical complexity. The second thrust focuses on the solid state chemistry of mixed anion compounds. It involves extending existing knowledge into new chemical spaces, with the general principle of synergistically tailoring chemical bonding and physical properties. The presence of secondary anions can introduce crystal structural disorder that favors ion diffusion, as well as stabilize transition metals in high formal oxidation states. These thrusts will allow us to explore the boundaries of ionic conduction, redox and intercalation chemistry of solids, as well as the limits of electrochemical energy storage.
Our interests in physical chemistry center on defining the chemical pathways of redox phase transformations in solids. We are interested in phenomena that occur at multiple length scales, from atomic to macroscopic, or, in other words, from single crystals to particle assemblies. For this purpose, we strongly rely on X-ray-based tools, particularly those accessible at synchrotron facilities such as the Advanced Photon Source, at Argonne National Laboratory. We have demonstrated a variety of methodologies of chemical imaging at several spatial resolutions, both in 2D and 3D (see figure), and currently push to break the technical boundaries to be able to image increasingly small single crystals during the transformation.
Selected Publications
- L. Hu, P. Brüner, T. Grehl, H. H. Brongersma and J. Cabana*.Control of chemical structure in core–shell nanocrystals for the stabilization of battery electrode/electrolyte interfaces, Chem. Mater. 2017, 29, 5896–5905.
- T. Yi, W. Chen, L. Cheng, R. D. Bayliss, F. Lin, M. R. Plews, D. Nordlund, M. M. Doeff, K. A. Persson and J. Cabana*.Investigating the intercalation chemistry of alkali ions in fluoride perovskites, Chem. Mater. 2017, 29, 1561–1568.
- Y.-S. Yu, C. Kim, D. A. Shapiro, M. Farmand, D. Qian, T. Tyliszczak, A. L. D. Kilcoyne, R. Celestre, S. Marchesini, J. Joseph, P. Denes, T. Warwick, F. C. Strobridge, C. P. Grey, H. Padmore, Y. S. Meng, R. Kostecki and J. Cabana*. Dependence on crystal size of the nanoscale chemical phase distribution and fracture in LixFePO4, Nano Lett. 2015, 15, 4282–4288.
- C. Kim, P. J. Phillips, B. Key, T. Yi, D. Nordlund, Y.-S. Yu, R. D. Bayliss, S.-D. Han, M. He, Z. Zhang, A. K. Burrell, R. F. Klie and J. Cabana*. Direct observation of reversible magnesium ion intercalation into a spinel oxide host, Adv. Mater. 2015, 27, 3377–3384.
- Y.-S. Yu, C. Kim, Y. Liu, A. van der Ven, Y. S. Meng, R. Kostecki and J. Cabana*. Nonequilibrium pathways during electrochemical phase transformations in single crystals revealed by dynamic chemical imaging at nanoscale resolution, Adv. Energy Mater. 2015, 5, 1402040.
Education
B.Sc. in Chemistry, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), 2000
Ph.D. in Materials Science, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), 2004
Postdoctoral Associate, Institut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (Spain), 2004-2005
Postdoctoral Fellow, Stony Brook University (USA), 2005-2008
Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2008-2013