Spectroscopic studies of water splitting photocatalysis

Solar driven fuel synthesis is a key challenge to provide a scalable mechanism to store solar energy in chemical bonds, addressing the intermittency of solar irradiation and providing a carbon neutral pathway to sustainable fuels and chemicals. One approach to achieving this is to use photocatalytic nanoparticle suspensions or sheets to split water into 'green' hydrogen and water. This project address the light driven water splitting on a range of state of the art photocatalytic materials, including in particular materials from Domen et al. in the University of Tokyo. Experimentally the project will based around the use of transient spectroscopic studies to measure charge carrier dynamics in these, and related materials, and the correlation of these dynamics with materials structure and device performance.