UCL CENTRE FOR MATERIALS RESEARCH

Research Summary

• Artificial photosynthesis/ Artificial leaves: Mimicking natural green plants, the aim of the research is to synthesise renewable and clean energy by carbon-free and neutral carbon photochemical processes, including solar hydrogen synthesis by photolysis of water and alcohols production by CO₂ photoreduction.  The core of the research  is the development of efficient inorganic semiconductor photocatalysts with controllable structures and morphologies to facilitate charge seperation and utilisation.

• Inorganic/polymer hybrid solar cell: Composed of inorganic nanostructured and porous film coupling with an organic polymer, the hybrid solar cell potentially features robustness and low cost for solar energy conversion to electricity. The research currently focuses on fabrication of visible-responsive robust nanorods film as charge acceptor and light absorber and engineering of the new prototype solar cell.
  

• Fundamental understanding of solar fuels generation: Semiconductor development for photocatalyis has to date been largely empirical, with only limited studies of the underlying mechanisms. My group is in parallel undertaking mechanistic studies to understand the basic photochemical processes by time-resolved spectroscopies, which is fed back to further direct material modification for solar fuel synthesis.

• Nano- & Bio-materials: The research is aimed at utilising the diverse technologies in my group, e.g. sol-gel, chemical deposition, electrochemical, hydrothermal and in particular microwave-prompted microfluidic approaches to prepare biomaterials with controlled pore size and morphology, as well as grow films on different substrates for use in drug delivery and tissue engineering.

• Microwave-assisted heterogeneous catalysis: The research work is coupling microwave irradiation with heterogeneous catalysis by using special reactors and a novel microwave-absorbing (MW) catalysts in a home-built system. This enables both microwave heating and microwave discharge assisted heterogeneous catalysis, such as for deNOx and deSOx .