Harry Morgan

DPhil student
Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory
University of Oxford
South Parks Road
Oxford, OX1 3QZ
United Kingdom

E-mail: harry.morgan@chem.ox.ac.uk

ORCID: 0000-0001-9647-8807

MChem, University of Oxford
MSc, University of Oxford

 

Research interests:

• Transition Metal and Solid State Chemistry
• Mechanisms in single-atom catalysis
• Structural and electronic processes in perovskites
• Bonding in encapsulated clusters

 

Publications:

Improving Hydride Conductivity in Layered Perovskites via Crystal Engineering, H. W. T. Morgan, H. J. Stroud, and N. L. Allan, ChemRxiv, (2020), 10.26434/chemrxiv.12730553.v1

[Cu₄@E₁₈]^4- (E = Sn, Pb): Fused Derivatives of Endohedral Stannaspherene and Plumbaspherene, L. Qiao, C. Zhang, C.-C. Shu, H. W. T. Morgan, J. E. McGrady, and Z.-M. Sun, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 142 (2020) 13288-13293, 10.1021/jacs.0c04815

A family of lead clusters with precious metal cores, C.-C. Shu, H. W. T. Morgan, L. Qiao, Z.-M. Sun and J. E. McGrady, Nature Communications, 11 (2020) 3477, 10.1038/s41467-020-17187-4

Pressure-induced transitions in 1-dimensional vanadium oxyhydrides Sr₂VO₃H and Sr₃V₂O₅H₂ and comparison to 2-dimensional SrVO₂H, T. Yamamoto, H. W. T. Morgan, D. Zeng, T. Kawakami, M. Amano Patino, M. A. Hayward, H. Kageyama, J. E. McGrady, Inorganic Chemistry, 59 (2019) 15393, 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.9b02459

Structural isomerism in the [(Ni@Sn₉)In(Ni@Sn₉)]^5- Zintl ion, C. Zhang, H. W. T. Morgan, Z.-C. Wang, C. Liu, Z.-M. Sun, and J. E. McGrady, Dalton Transactions, 48 (2019) 15888, 10.1039/C9DT03008E

Sr₂FeIrO₄: Square-Planar Ir(II) in an Extended Oxide, J. E. Page, H. W. T. Morgan, D. Zeng, P. Manuel, J. E. McGrady and M. A. Hayward, Inorganic Chemistry, 57 (2018) 13577, 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.8b02198

Ba₆Nb₄RuO₁₈ and LaBa₄Nb₃RuO₁₅ The structural consequences of substituting paramagnetic cations into A_nB_n-1O₃ cation-deficient perovskite oxides, E. E. Kamil, H. W. T. Morgan, M. A. Hayward, Journal of Solid State Chemistry, 238 (2016) 267 , 10.1016/j.jssc.2016.03.040

 

 

Current projects:

Hydrogen has the potential to play a starring role in the sustainable fuel economy of the future. For this to be practical, we need an efficient means of producing hydrogen. In collaboration with the Tsang group (Oxford) we are studying the ability of single transition metal atoms adsorbed onto MoS₂ monolayers to catalyse the conversion of water to hydrogen (the “hydrogen evolution reaction”, or HER). A single-atom active site incorporated into a two-dimensional periodic system puts this catalyst on the frontier of the traditional classes of homogeneous and heterogeneous and is therefore a challenge to experimental and computational study. By exploring its dual nature with a multifaceted computational approach we aim to understand the electronic details of the catalyst and aid the design of next-generation sustainable technology.

We are exploring another aspect of hydrogen technology in the emerging field of oxyhydride chemistry.  These solid materials are of interest both for the unusual bonding properties of the hydride anion and for the low-dimensional structures which they adopt, derived from perovskite parents. Pressure-induced structural and electronic transitions in SrVO₂H and Sr₂VO₃H are governed by the sigma symmetry of the hydrides and the incompressibility of the V-O bonds, and hydride conduction mechanisms in compounds like Ba₂ScO₃H are determined by local flexibility in different regions of the Ruddlesden-Popper framework. These examples show the ways in which the properties of transition metal oxyhydrides are dominated by the dimensionalities of their structures.

Ligand-free Zintl ions have held the attention of chemists for their high-symmetry geometries which continue to challenge our understanding of chemical bonding. Synthetic advances have brought clusters containing multiple encapsulated transition metal atoms, opening up the possibility of metal-metal bonds within the clusters. We have recently explored the balance of covalent and electrostatic interactions in stabilizing clusters in which lead encapsulates copper, silver and gold.