Research Projects

Research Projects

Design of next-generation electrocatalysts

Many industrial applications are highly dependent on precious metals such as platinum. Eminently, the use of precious metals in new, evolving technologies is being impeded on a large scale due to their low abundance and high costs. Here, a higher availability of cost-efficient catalyst materials is utterly desirable. Therefore, our aim is to reduce the amount of noble metals while keeping the activity and especially the stability up. Read more

<div style="text-align: justify;">Water electrolysis as a key technology for the storing of renewable electricity is one of the principal research areas in our group. Targeted efficiency of water electrolysis is still serious challenge predominantly due to the limitations in the performance of anode reaction – oxygen evolution reaction.</div>

Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Water electrolysis as a key technology for the storing of renewable electricity is one of the principal research areas in our group. Targeted efficiency of water electrolysis is still serious challenge predominantly due to the limitations in the performance of anode reaction – oxygen evolution reaction.

Oxygen Reduction Reaction

Oxygen reduction reaction is studied by combining different approaches in a concerted way.

The idea behind electrochemical CO<sub>2</sub> reduction is to convert CO<sub>2</sub> into chemical compounds like methane, methanol or carbon monoxide (for Syngas), that can serve as energy storage and can be used to compensate energy fluctuations from renewable energy sources by classical combustion or in combination with fuel cells. Therefore this approach is also referred as the artificial carbon dioxide cycle.

Electrochemical CO2-reduction

The idea behind electrochemical CO₂ reduction is to convert CO₂ into chemical compounds like methane, methanol or carbon monoxide (for Syngas), that can serve as energy storage and can be used to compensate energy fluctuations from renewable energy sources by classical combustion or in combination with fuel cells. Therefore this approach is also referred as the artificial carbon dioxide cycle. Read more

Electrochemical in-situ TEM

In this project we plan to utilize advanced electrochemical characterization in-situ water-based TEM technique gaining valuable insights in to potential- and time-dependent electrochemical processes Read more

<div style="text-align: justify;">Deeper insights to the corrosion behavior of Zinc are available with a SFC setup coupled with UV-Vis downstream analytics. This system enables for complementary high throughput analysis. Furthermore, high sensitivity and selectivity is achieved by using a specialized complexing agent and a custom made UV-Vis flow cell.</div>

Zinc Corrosion

Deeper insights to the corrosion behavior of Zinc are available with a SFC setup coupled with UV-Vis downstream analytics. This system enables for complementary high throughput analysis. Furthermore, high sensitivity and selectivity is achieved by using a specialized complexing agent and a custom made UV-Vis flow cell.

<div style="text-align: justify;">Transparent conducting oxides (TCO) play an important technical role, for instance as an electrical contact in thin film solar cells. ZnO was found to be a promising material for photovoltaics due to its optical end electrical characteristics, with the material optimization process presently ongoing.</div>

Electrochemical texturing of Al-doped ZnO

Transparent conducting oxides (TCO) play an important technical role, for instance as an electrical contact in thin film solar cells. ZnO was found to be a promising material for photovoltaics due to its optical end electrical characteristics, with the material optimization process presently ongoing.

Noble metals oxidation and corrosion as stability benchmark for electrochemical oxygen reactions

Oxidation and corrosion of noble metals is a fundamental problem of crucial importance in the advancement of the long-term renewable energy concept strategy. In our group we use state-of-the-art electrochemical scanning flow cell (SFC) coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) setup to address the problem. Read more

Biocorrosion

Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) of iron by marine sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) is studied electrochemically and surfaces of corroded samples have been investigated in a long-term project. Read more

_{Header picture: Effect of ordering of PtCu3 nanoparticle structure on the activity and stability for the oxygen reduction reaction}

_{http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2014/cp/c4cp00585f}