New hybrid systems for photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion

The search for green alternative sources of energy is of great importance in order to battle increasing greenhouse gases and global warming, and to meet the UK’s 2050 climate change targets. Among the several technologies that have been proposed to tackle global warming, hydrogen production via photoelectrochemical processes constitutes a promising and efficient approach for hydrogen production from water splitting. The high cost of the noble metal catalysts, essential for the efficient performance of these devices, is one of the major drawbacks to their development in the current market. In this respect, effort should be put into designing advanced structures, hybrid photoelectrocatalytic systems with higher efficiencies. Specifically, more attention needs to be paid into the oxygen evolution reaction, where the energy loss is highest.

This PhD project will give the successful candidate the opportunity to design, create and test new nanostructured hybrid photoactive systems for water splitting. Some of the materials investigated will include transition metal oxide and oxynitrides, N-doped C and others. Innovative processing techniques such as electrospinning or 3D-printing will be also used. The materials will be characterised firstly in terms of structural properties (porosity, particle size, homogeneity, surface area, order), stability (in air, acid and alkaline media) and optoelectronic features (absorption spectrum, photoluminescence, band-gap calculations). For this, XRD, BET, SEM, TEM, AFM, TGA, DSC, FTIR, Raman, UV-visible will be employed. Selected systems will be tested for photoelectrochemical water splitting and incident to photon to charge carrier efficiencies (IPCE) and H2 and O2 evolved will be determined. A solid background in electrochemical techniques and materials science is essential. Experience using characterisation equipment typically employed in materials research is also an advantage (XRD, UV-Vis, TGA, DSC, AFM, FTIR, Raman, BET, SEM, TEM).
Co-supervised by Prof. Magda Titirici and Dr. Russell Binions.