Highly Porous Multifunctional Catalytic H2 Production and CO2 Reduction
By Shivalingayya Gaddimath
As the world’s appetite for energy grows and the planet grapples with rising environmental adversity, scientists and engineers are racing to develop clean and green energy solutions to sustain contemporary society. In the past few years, energy consumption has dramatically increased, and energy demand is expected to increase by 3 times by 2050. Fuel cells, metal-air batteries, and Li-CO2 batteries are at the forefront of this effort to meet today’s energy demand without compromising the needs of future generations. The primary reactions oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution, hydrogen evolution, and CO2 reduction can advance the renewable energy technologies but all of them necessitates the industry scale development of advanced materials as efficient catalysts. The development of low cost, high earth abundant electrocatalysts via simpler and reliable process will pave the way for tomorrow's green energy fulfilment for catalyzing water electrolysis for hydrogen production and CO2 conversion into fuels. In this perspective, the potential of catalysis applications in energy and environment has attracted researchers and industries to work together to improve the present catalytic materials as well as search for new classes of catalytic materials. Considering the crucial role of materials in green transition, this PhD project aims to develop tetrapods based novel class of highly porous 3D functional materials and investigate their catalysis responses. The major focus is to explore the appropriate material designs and combinations to demonstrate high catalytic performance with respect to hydrogen/oxygen evolution reaction (HER/OER), CO2 capture and conversion processes.
Supervisor: Prof. Yogendra Kumar Mishra
Layered Perovskite Oxynitrides for Solar Water Splitting
By Linh Truong
The depletion of fossil fuels, along with rising greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, has intensified the demand for renewable and sustainable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and biomass. Fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas, are finite and environmentally detrimental, restricting their long-term use in energy production, industrial processes, and transportation. Consequently, the development of clean and sustainable energy systems has become a critical global priority for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Hydrogen is regarded as a promising energy carrier for achieving carbon-neutral energy conversion due to its high gravimetric energy density, low molecular weight, abundance, and clean combustion. Among the various production methods, solar-driven water splitting offers a direct and sustainable route for converting solar energy into chemical fuel by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. Solar water splitting involves three key processes: photon absorption and generation of electron-hole pairs, charge separation and migration to active sites, and surface redox reactions. These processes correspond to the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, the OER is kinetically sluggish due to its complex four-electron transfer mechanism, requiring high overpotentials and efficient catalysts, and thus represents the main bottleneck for achieving overall water splitting. layered perovskite transition-metal oxynitrides have emerged as a promising class of photocatalysts owing to their favorable optoelectronic properties, including strong visible-light absorption, narrow band gaps, and suitable band structures. In particular, two-dimensional layered perovskite oxynitrides exhibit enhanced charge separation, reduced recombination, and improved photocatalytic performance compared to conventional three-dimensional counterparts. Their high crystallinity, large surface area, and good charge-transport properties further contribute to their efficiency. This research aims to develop novel two-dimensional layered perovskite oxynitrides, focusing on their synthesis, crystal structure, physicochemical properties, and photocatalytic/photoelectrochemical performance for efficient and sustainable hydrogen production via solar water splitting.
Supervisor: Mirabbos Khujamberdiev
