South Korea Collaboration Trip

The proposed trip involves travel to South Korea to deepen ongoing collaborations/initiate new collaborations with several Korean universities and research groups, focusing on the assembly of nanocarbon and carbon nitride solutions, namely:

Prof Sang Ouk Kim, Dr Gyoung Hwa Jeong (KAIST)
Prof Rodney S. Ruoff (UNIST)
Dr Wonjun Lee (Dankook University)

Adam Clancy will visit all three institutions to see the cutting-edge assembly methodologies developed for nanomaterial assembly and catalytic activity measurements. Laboratory tours at each facility will allow for greater understanding of each institutes capabilities, particularly for materials characterisation and assembly, to help guide the collaborations. In each institution, a talk will be arranged to disseminate my ongoing and previously published research to new audiences. Particular emphasis will be made into monitoring ongoing collaborative research at KAIST where materials designed and synthesised at UCL are being assembled. This direct interaction will provide an unparalleled opportunity to provide immediate feedback regarding material processing, handling, and device integration.

Significant steps have been taken recently at UCL in creating solutions of renewable, environmentally friendly highly crystalline carbon nitride materials; in particular, advanced processing has recently been shown to facilitate tuneable bandgaps and photoluminescent properties. These discoveries provide a viable, cheap, and scalable route to a range of next-generation green technologies, including photocatalysts, white-light emitters, and improved photovoltaic efficiencies. While the ongoing research has focused on dissolution and fundamental optoelectronic properties, collaboration is the most viable route to advancing the research into prototypes for real-world applications. Given the expertise of the targeted groups being visited in this trip, the timeline towards commercialization will be accelerated. Notably, these materials are expected to improve light-driven water-splitting efficiency (by tuning the bandgap), and energy efficient flexible lighting (via downshifting UV/blue LEDs to broad-band white emission).