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Post-Doctoral Researcher
Research
Research Interests
Solar energy is the world's largest renewable energy resource; the solar irradiation on the planet in 1 hour exceeds our current annual global energy demand. Plant photosynthesis demonstrates the viability of direct conversion of sunlight to chemical fuels, storing incident solar irradiation in the form of chemical bonds. We would like to use this principle to construct man-made systems capable of converting solar energy to useful chemicals and fuels (artificial photosynthesis) however their efficiencies are too low to be commercially viable at present.
My research is primarily focussed on solar fuels synthesis by inorganic and organic photocatalysts. I study ways to efficiently harness natural sunlight to generate chemical fuels, specifically H2 and O2 from water and CO2 to CO, CH4 and so on. Such systems are composed of nanostructured semiconductor light absorbers which are then coupled to earth abundant co-catalysts to improve reaction selectivity and kinetics. These can either be produced as thin films for use as a photoanode/photocathode in a photoelectrochemical system under an applied voltage, or as a powder (suspension) system without the use of sacrificial reagents for overall water splitting. I am interested in novel 2D materials, solution-based thin films synthesis, and construction of heterojunctions for both fuel synthesis and water depollution.
Supervisor:
Education
- 2012-2015: PDRA in Solar Energy Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, UCL.
- 2008-2012: PhD, Inorganic & Materials Chemistry, UCL. Thesis title: “Growth of Bi2O3 and BiFeO3 films via CVD,” supervised by C. Blackman and C. J. Carmalt.
- 2004-2008: MSci Chemistry, UCL
