Computational Facilities
We have a departmental Beowulf cluster that we use for our computational work

• Beowulf is a cluster of 70 computers: 4 servers and 66 nodes
• The nodes are rack mounted with high-speed switched interconnects.
• Cluster aggregate:
• 137 physical processors (219 logical)
• 170 GB physical memory
• 300 GB virtual memory
• ~ 4.1 TB total hard disk space
• Theoretical peak performance ~ 600 Gflops

Experimental Facilities:
We are building a lab for applied and fundamental electrochemical investigations in environmental and energy-related applications.

Electrochemical Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
We have an Agilent PicoPlus scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with a bipotentiostat for in situ scanning in electrolyte solutions under potential control. We have recently ordered a flow cell for use in the STM which will allow us to exchange the electrolyte solutions during experiments. We have also ordered a Schrodinger Sharpener for etching Pt-Ir tips.

We are using this instrument to investigate and characterize the electrodeposition of transition metal alloys on model HOPG surfaces and to correlate the physical properties of the electrodeposits with their electrochemical properties.

HPR-20 Gas analyzer
We have an HPR-20 gas analyzer which allows us to characterize the composition of gases evolved from electrochemical cells using mass spectrometry. We are coupling this instrument to electrolysis cells so that we can monitor product distributions in electrochemical reactors.

Potentiostat and cells
We use the Gamry Ref600 potentiostat for the electrochemical experiments in our lab. We have a variety of electrochemical cells and a rotating disk electrode and rotator from Pine Instruments.

Fuel cell testing
We have recently ordered a NUV-10 fuel cell test stand from Nuvant, Inc for testing direct alcohol and hydrogen based PEM fuel cells. This instrument controls the flowrates, temperatures and humidity levels of the gas streams into and out of a fuel cell and monitors the current and voltage under operating conditions. We will be constructing our own membrane electrode assemblies with electrocatalysts developed in our laboratory for testing with this instrument.

Miscellaneous equipment
We have a tube furnace capable of reaching 1200 degrees C and standard equipment for electrocatalyst synthesis.