Current Position

Tony and Sarah Earley Professor of Energy and the Environment, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Associate Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, College of Engineering

Education

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
B.S., Chemistry, Kentucky Wesleyan College
B.E., Chemical Engineering, Vanderbilt University

Research Interests

Prof. Hicks’ research group is primarily focused in the area of heterogeneous catalysis.  The Hicks group seeks to understand how the properties and structures of catalysts affect activity and selectivity for specific reactions. The group couples their experimental results with detailed characterization of the heterogeneous catalysts to develop relationships between the catalyst structure and the resulting catalytic activity. The group also studies catalyst stability at reaction conditions, as fundamental understanding of stability is required for advanced catalyst development and for process commercialization. The Hicks group currently has projects focused on the synthesis and characterization of new catalytic materials for biofuels applications.  For these reactions, they examine many catalytic processes to convert biomass to biofuels: catalytic pyrolysis, catalytic liquefaction, and gasification. In other projects, the Hicks group is employing new synthesis procedures to enhance the stability of metal organic framework catalytic materials.

Key Words

Biofuels, Carbon Capture and Conversion, Catalysis, C-H Bond Activation, CO₂ Conversion, Heterogeneous catalysis, Hydrodeoxygenation, Mesoporous Materials, Metal-Organic Frameworks, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Sustainable Bio/Fossil Fuels

Relevant Energy Publications

1. Geng, Feiyang, Yolanda Bonita, Varsha Jain, Matthew Magiera, Neeraj Rai, and Jason C. Hicks. "Bimetallic Ru–Mo Phosphide Catalysts for the Hydrogenation of CO2 to Methanol." Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 59, no. 15 (2020): 6931-6943.
2. Mehta, Prateek, Patrick M. Barboun, Yannick Engelmann, David B. Go, Annemie Bogaerts, William F. Schneider, and Jason C. Hicks. "Plasma-catalytic ammonia synthesis beyond the equilibrium limit." ACS Catalysis 10, no. 12 (2020): 6726-6734.
3. Turan, Nazli, Patrick M. Barboun, Pritam K. Nayak, Jason C. Hicks, and David B. Go. "Development of a small-scale helical surface dielectric barrier discharge for characterizing plasma–surface interfaces." Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 53, no. 27 (2020): 275201.
4. Ko, Jeonghyun, Jessica A. Muhlenkamp, Yolanda Bonita, Nicole J. LiBretto, Jeffrey T. Miller, Jason C. Hicks, and William F. Schneider. "Experimental and Computational Investigation of the Role of P in Moderating Ethane Dehydrogenation Performance over Ni-Based Catalysts." Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 59, no. 28 (2020): 12666-12676.
5. Bogaerts, Annemie, Xin Tu, J. Christopher Whitehead, Gabriele Centi, Leon Lefferts, Olivier Guaitella, Federico Azzolina-Jury et al. "The 2020 plasma catalysis roadmap." Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 53, no. 44 (2020): 443001.

Department Website
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