Alberto Rivera
SUNY University at Stony Brook
Faculty Advisor: Prof. Caroline Ross
Research Supervisors: Bob Zhang, Chuyi Pan
Department: Chemistry
Biography
Alberto Rivera is a rising sophomore majoring in Chemical and Molecular Engineering
at Stony Brook University, where he is a Simons STEM Scholar. His love of nature drives his
commitment to sustainability; he wants to help build a future where clean energy protects the
world he loves exploring. This summer, he is researching block copolymers, studying how their
self-assembly can be used as a template for carbon capture catalysts. At his home institution, he
researches the electrical and thermal properties of ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs),
radiation tolerant materials for extreme environment applications. He plans to pursue a PhD
in Chemical Engineering with a focus on discovering next-generation energy materials that
make advanced technology more sustainable. Beyond the lab, Alberto loves trying new foods,
listening to music, and going to the gym.
Self-Assembly of Nanoscale Porous Catalysts for Carbon Conversion
Alberto Rivera1, Chuyi Pan2, Baopu Zhang2, and Caroline Ross2
1Department of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Stony Brook University
2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
High performance carbon capture technology requires catalysts with large surface areas and
continuous diffusion pathways, yet scalable high throughput fabrication methods for highly
ordered three-dimensional nanostructured catalysts remain limited. Although block copolymer
gyroids have been widely studied as nanoporous materials, little is known about how
processing conditions govern their formation in polystyrene-block-poly(2-vinylpyridine)
(PS-b-P2VP) thin films or how these structures can be translated from metal oxide scaffolds
into catalyst with controllable feature size. Spin coated PS-b-P2VP thin films of various
thickness are solvent vapor annealed to induce self-assembly into gyroid morphologies.
Ordered films are then selectively infiltrated with a tin precursor to produce porous tin oxide
scaffolds. Samples are characterized using SEM and AFM to determine the processing
conditions that produce highly ordered gyroid networks and uniform porous tin oxide
structures. These results establish optimized experimental conditions for forming PS-b-P2VP
gyroids, serve as a basis for other polymers, and demonstrate the potential of self-assembled
gyroid templates for nanostructured catalyst supporting the future of carbon conversion
technologies.
