Welcome to the Stoerzinger Research Group

2026 spring
The Stoerzinger Research Group is based in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science led by Prof. Kelsey A. Stoerzinger. Chemical reactions can be used to store energy, transform molecules into valuable feedstocks, and recycle precious natural resources. Our group primarily leverages (electro)catalysis to tailor the reaction pathway, impacting the product distribution and rate of conversion.
 
Stoerzinger's research program designs materials and processes for the storage of renewable electricity and its use in upgrading carbon feedstocks, conversion of waste to fertilizer, and distributed chemical production. Specifically, the group develops catalysts that facilitate these reactions in an efficient and selective manner, designing for stability and leveraging earth abundant transition metals when possible. These materials can enable transformative approaches to producing chemicals and storing energy for a sustainable future. 

The collaborative integration of chemical engineering and materials science in the department is the ideal home for Stoerzinger’s research. 

Recent Publications

Prange, M. Stoerzinger, K.A. Sushko, P. "Site-dependent structural and vibrational characteristics of hydrogenated nanoscale Pd" J. Phys. Chem. C (2026) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5c07799.

Jeong, S.G. Lin, B. Jin, M. Choi, I.H. Lee, S. Yang, Z. Nair, S. Choudhary, R. Parikh, J. Neurock, M. Stoerzinger, K.A. Lee, J.S. Low, T. Tu, Q. LeBeau, J.M. Jalan, B. "Strain-Stabilized Interfacial Polarization Tunes Work Function Over 1 eV in RuO2/TiO2 Heterostructures" Nature Communications (2026) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69200-x.

Abedi, Mahyar; Chang, Alvin; Hassan, Hadear; Yang, Andrew; Hickethier, Micah; Bushagour, Amira; Aghajari, Mehrsa; Stoerzinger, Kelsey; Layton, Astrid; Abbasi, Bahman; Chang, Chih-Hung; Feng, Zhenxing "Recovering Critical Metals from Brines: Technology Landscape, Circular Economy, and Future Trends" ACS Appl. Energy Mater. (2026) https://doi.org/10.1021/acsaem.5c03407.

Dawidowicz J, Carvalho OQ, Árnadóttir L, Stoerzinger K.A. Complementary Surface Motifs Enhance NO3RR Performance in NiFe Alloys. ChemSusChem. (2026) https://doi.org/10.1002/cssc.202502337.

Pathak D.K., Jana R., Bello R., White K., Stoerzinger K.A. “Robust catalyst assessment for the electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction.” Commun Chem 8, 302 (2025).

Research Topics

Energy Conversion/Storage  
Resource Recovery  
Molecular Transformations  

Recent News

  • Jan 2026: The group welcomes visiting Prof. Eric Fort from the University of St. Thomas, doing his sabbatical with the group.
  • Jan 2026: Kelly returns from her research exchange with the Katayama group at the University of Osaka (welcome back!) and presents her work using SEIRAS to understand the role of co-adsorbates during NO3RR at the Chemical Reactions at Surfaces Gordon Research Conference.
  • Nov 2025: The group welcomes first-year graduate students Michael Galvin and Justin Cao (co-advised with Siepmann).
  • Nov 2025: Postdoc Rajkumar presents his work " Understanding cation effects in nitrate electroreduction on cobalt" at Fall MRS
  • Nov 2025: Jory presents his work " Nickel-Iron Alloys as Catalysts for Electrochemical Conversion of Nitrate to Ammonium" at AIChE. 
  • Oct 2025: Kaavya presented her poster titled "Exploring the Impact of Nitrate Concentration and Cation Species on Electrochemical Co-Reduction of Nitrate and CO2 Towards Urea Synthesis" at Fall ECS.
  • Oct 2025: REU student Yaneiska presented her work titled "Understanding and Manipulating the Electrical Double Layer in Electrocatalysis" at SACNAS. Congrats!

Funding Sources

doe

 

 

noaa

 

nsf