Faculty & Staff
Zdenek Dohnalek, PhD
Zdenek Dohnalek, Ph.D.
Adjoint Professor, PNNL
Experimental studies of fundamental model systems that are necessary to understand complex processes that take place in heterogeneous catalysis and environment
Dr. Dohnalek’s web page at PNNL
Office: PNNL
📧zdenek.dohnalek@wsu.edu
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
PO Box 999
Richland, WA 99352
Education & Credentials
- 2000–Present, Senior Research Scientist II, Chemical Structure and Dynamics Department, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA
- 1998–2000, Postdoctoral Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, W. R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Richland, WA
- Ph.D., Physical Chemistry, University of Pittsburgh, 1997
- M.S., Chemical Engineering, Institute of Chemical Engineering, Prague, Czech Republic, 1991
Biography
My research focused on experimental studies of fundamental model systems that are necessary to understand complex processes that take place in heterogeneous catalysis and environment. The work concentrates on adsorption, diffusion, and desorption dynamics and kinetics, binding, and reactivity of adsorbates on model well characterized surfaces and clusters. A combined experimental approach involving both atomically resolved imaging and ensemble averaged methods is employed to provide a detailed, molecular-level understanding of catalyst structure and reactivity. Novel deposition methods, developed in our laboratory, are further used to prepare clusters and nanoporous films of model oxide catalysts with tailored chemical properties. All studies are complemented by theoretical investigations carried out by collaborators and are intended to provide general structure-reactivity relationships. Systems recently investigated include a partial oxidation of alcohols on supported WO3 clusters and on rutile TiO2(110) surface, water-oxygen reactions on TiO2(110), numerous adsorbates on epitaxial MgO(100) and nanoporous MgO films, ethylene hydrogenation on thin epitaxial and nanoporous Pd films, and most recently CO2 on TiO2(110).