Rate My Professor Xiaofeng Feng

Xiaofeng Feng serves as Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Central Florida, with secondary joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, and affiliation with the Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformations (REACT) Cluster. He earned a B.S. in Physics from Peking University in 2007, an M.S. in Physics from Tsinghua University in 2009, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2013. From 2014 to 2016, Feng conducted postdoctoral research as a scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. He joined the University of Central Florida as Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics in August 2016, with joint appointments in Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.

Feng's research centers on electrocatalysis for renewable energy conversion and chemical transformations, developing catalysts and systems for fuel cells, electrolyzers, water splitting, CO₂ reduction to chemicals like ethanol, ethylene, and propanol, and nitrate reduction to ammonia from wastewater. His approach involves in situ scanning probe microscopy and synchrotron X-ray spectroscopy to probe structure-activity relationships and active sites at solid-liquid interfaces, alongside synthesis of nanomaterials such as metal nanostructures and 2D materials via hydrothermal, colloidal, vapor deposition, and electrodeposition methods. Key publications encompass "Interplay of active sites and microenvironment in high-rate electrosynthesis of H₂O₂ on doped carbon" (ACS Catalysis, 2023), "Identification of active sites for ammonia electrosynthesis on ruthenium" (ACS Energy Letters, 2022), "Tuning the microenvironment in gas-diffusion electrodes enables high-rate CO₂ electrolysis to formate" (ACS Energy Letters, 2021), "Enhancing carbon dioxide gas-diffusion electrolysis by creating a hydrophobic catalyst microenvironment" (Nature Communications, 2021), and "Ambient ammonia synthesis via palladium-catalyzed electrohydrogenation of dinitrogen at low overpotential" (Nature Communications, 2018). Feng has received the 2019 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, the UCF Teaching Incentive Program award (2023), the American Vacuum Society Morton M. Traum Surface Science Award (2017), the Materials Research Society Graduate Student Silver Award (2013), and the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad (2013).