Advanced functionalisation materials for energy generation and environmental remediation

Project Highlights:
Advanced 2D materials and functionalisation of
photo/electrocatalytic materials for textile
wastewater treatment
High end fundamental knowledge development
and characterisation for alternative oxidation
processes to water oxidation
Prototype development
Overview:
This research engages with the central concern of
synthesis/processing of 2D materials such as mXene,
MoS2 and other similar groups of materials as light driven catalysts for photocatalytic wastewater
treatment.
Thever-increasing population and the continuous
thriving economic development have raised the global
energy demand by orders of magnitude. As of now,
the majority of our energy needs are derived from
fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. However,
the gradual depletion of fossil fuels and the adverse
effects fossil fuels pose to the environment have
stimulated intense research to develop novel
strategies to derive sustainable and clean energy
sources. Conversion of solar energy to chemical
energy via artificial photosynthesis could be an ideal
solution to address these energy and environment
issues, providing us with carbon-free energy
resources. Water oxidation is the most crucial part of
both natural and artificial photosynthesis processes.
The major hurdle in achieving high efficiency in
artificial photosynthesis is the inherent slow kinetics
of the water oxidation reaction. In a practical water splitting system, oxygen evolution reaction (OER)
occurs at the anode and hydrogen evolution reaction
(HER) at the cathode. To overcome the energy demanding bottleneck of OER, developing highly
active catalysts have excellent stability, and need low
overpotential is crucial. RuO2 or IrO2 are currently the
leading OER catalysts due to their stable performance
in a wide pH range i.e from acidic to alkaline media.
But their applications are restricted to a great extent
due to their low abundance and high cost. Therefore,
it is important to develop highly efficient OER
catalysts that are earth-abundant and less expensive.
Atmospheric pressure plasma is a novel tool for
materials processing and functionalisation of 2D
materials. It has been found that atmospheric
pressure plasma jets can enhance the crystallinity and
charge transport properties of both inorganic and
organic materials in-addition to improving
hydrophilicity. In this project, atmospheric pressure
plasma would be used to functionalise nanostructures
i.e nanoparticles and thin films as OER catalysts. The
catalysts would be tested for stability in alkaline,
neutral and acidic pH conditions. Traditional, metal
oxide catalysts fail to show the high activity in pH < 7
conditions. Hence, it is highly desired that the catalyst
operates optimally at neutral pH (ideally in lower pH
regimes) in comparison to commercial RuO2 or IrO2
OER catalysts and hence reducing target pollutants
(textile dyes).
The project is an inter-disciplinary with the intention
to advance the ways that we design for catalysis using plasma, materials engineering and electrochemistry.