New Magnetic Core-Metal Oxide Shell Nanoparticles for Photocatalytic Water-Splitting

During this DPhil project, research will focus on the design of novel technologies that use sunlight and water to produce hydrogen fuel. This project falls within the ESPRC Energy research area.

The extreme weather caused by global warming is already creating humanitarian crisis. Due to severe droughts, people in Niger are fighting to stop their land turning into an inhospitable desert; Madagascar has seen four major storms in just one month (February 2022) that have "wrecked the island nation"; warming of the oceans threatens all its inhabitants and consequently, the lives of 3 billion people that depend on the food from the ocean and its coasts. As is commonly known, a major cause of global warming is rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas which traps heat, preventing its escape from Earth into space. CO2 emissions released from burning of fossils fuels, such as petrol, diesel, and coal, are significantly contributing to the rising atmospheric levels. This highlights why there is a great need for green alternatives to fossil fuels. Hydrogen (H2) is a realistic alternative green fuel. The emissions of H2 fuel are very clean and carbon-free; when burnt, H2 reacts with oxygen to produce only water. Further, gram for gram, significantly more energy is released when burning H2 compared to any fossil fuel.

Before H2 can replace fossil fuels, a few technological challenges need overcoming. One of these challenges is producing H2 in a carbon-free and sustainable way. A promising solution, known as solar-catalytic water-splitting (SCWS), uses specifically designed technology to generate H2 from sunlight and water. This technology is incredibly sustainable. It uses two of the most abundant resources available to mankind - the sun and the sea. Due to low H2-generation efficiencies, SCWS technology is not currently commercially-viable. When SCWS systems absorb sunlight, they convert the solar energy into useful reaction energy and much-less-useful heat energy. The reaction energy converts water to H2. Current SCWS technologies have low efficiencies because they convert too much of the sunlight into heat energy and not enough into reaction energy.

The research in this project will focus on designing new, more efficient SCWS technology that can use sunlight more effectively by converting a higher proportion of the absorbed solar energy into useful reaction energy for H2 generation. The approach of this research is to use known advantageous design features of various current SCWS systems and combine them into one highly efficient SCWS system. New advantageous features may also be discovered in this process. The main challenge will be figuring out how to make the new systems as this chemistry can be tricky and unpredictable. Through contributions from this research and from research by other scientists in the field, hopefully one day, SCWS technology will be used to sustainably generate H2 fuel anywhere that water and sunlight are available.

The primary impact of the OxICFM CDT will be the highly-trained world-class scientists that it delivers. This impact will encompass both the short term (during their doctoral studies), the medium term (subsequent employment) and ultimately the longer timescale defined by their future careers and consequent impact on science, engineering and policy in the UK.

The impact of OxICFM students during their doctoral studies will be measured by the culture change in graduate training that the Centre brings about - in working at the interface between inorganic synthesis and manufacturing, and fostering cross-sector industry/academia working practices. By embedding not only from larger companies, but also SMEs, we have developed a training regime that has broader relevance across the sector, and the potential for building bridges by fostering new collaborations spanning enormous diversity in scientific focus and scale. Moreover, at a broader level, OxICFM offers to play a unique role as a major focus (and advocate) for manufacturing engagement with academic inorganic synthetic science in the UK.

From a scientific perspective, OxICFM will be uniquely able to offer a broad training programme incorporating innovative and challenging collaborative projects spanning all aspects of fundamental and applied inorganic synthesis, both molecular and materials based (40+ faculty). These will address key challenges in areas such as energy provision/storage, catalysis, and resource provision/renewal necessary to enhance the capability and durability of UK plc in the medium term. To give some idea of perspective, the output from previous CDTs in Oxford's MPLS Division include two start-up companies and in excess of 30 patents.

It is not only in the industrial and scientific realms that students will have impact during their timeframe of their doctorate. Part of the training programme will be in public engagement: team-based challenges in resource development/training and outreach exercises/implementation will form part of the annual summer school. These in turn will constitute a key part of the impact derived from the CDT by its engagement with the public - both face-to-face and through electronic/web-based media. As the centre matures, our aspiration is that our students - from diverse backgrounds - will act as ambassadors for the programme and promote even higher levels of inclusion from all parts of society.

For our partners, and businesses both large and small in the manufacturing sector, it will be our students who are considered the ultimate output of the OxICFM CDT. Our programme has been shaped by the need of such companies (frequently expressed in preliminary discussions) to recruit doctoral graduates who can apply themselves to a broad spectrum of multi-disciplinary challenges in manufacturing-related synthesis. OxICFM's cohort-based training programme integrates significant industry-led training components and has been designed to deliver a much broader skill set than standard PhD schemes. The current lack of CDT training at the interface of inorganic chemistry and manufacturing (and the relevance of inorganic molecules/materials to numerous industrial sectors) heightens the need for - and the potential impact of - the OxICFM CDT. Our students will represent a tangible and valuable asset to meet the long-term skills demand for scientists to develop new materials and nanotechnology identified in the UK Government's 2013 Foresight report.

In the longer term, the broad and relevant training delivered by OxICFM, and the uniquely wide perspective of the manufacturing sector it will deliver, will allow our graduates to obtain (and thrive in) positions of significant responsibility in industry and in research facilities/institutes. Ultimately we believe that many will go on to be future research leaders, driving innovation and changing research culture, and thereby making a lasting contribution to the UK economy.