The CPE will be hosting its annual Christmas Symposium online this year, on 16 December, and will feature three academic research talks from across the CPE. Further details will be circulated closer to the date. MS Teams (Internal Only).

Speakers:

  • Dr Cecilia Mattevi, Department of Materials
  • Dr Salvador Eslava, Department of Chemical Engineering
  • Prof Iain McCulloch, Department of Chemistry and University of Oxford

Prof Iain McCulloch

Polymer Design for Organic Bioelectronics

Organic bioelectronics is a rapidly emerging field, where the soft and flexible mechanical properties, mixed ionic and electronic conductivity, and bespoke versatility of organic semiconducting polymers can provide the platform for a wide range of applications in enhanced bioelectronic sensing, diagnostics and therapeutics.  The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) has emerged as a promising device in organic bioelectronics.  The open and hydrated physical nature of organic semiconductors employed as the active component, allows for facile ion penetration, supports mixed conduction, and has enabled high volumetric capacitance and efficient transduction, leading to promising sensing and integrated amplifying circuits.  Thus far, hole-transporting polymers have far outpaced electron-transporting polymers’ performance, and subsequently, OECT versatility has been limited by design constraints of unipolar (p-type) transistor-based circuit design. Incorporating both n and p type transistors allows for more flexibility in amplifier stage design, facilitates complementary circuit design and integration and simplifies biasing schemes. Unfortunately, n-type mixed conductors for stable and reversible OECTs do not thus far meet the required technological demands.  This presentation explores the fundamental reasons that contribute to the orders of magnitude lower performance of electron transport polymers in OECT devices, in comparison to hole transporting semiconducting polymers, and propose design and synthetic strategies to overcome this.

Dr Salvador Eslava

Engineering photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic materials for solar fuels

Senior Lecturer (Assoc. Prof.), EPSRC Early Career Fellow

Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

www.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.eslava; https://www.imperial.ac.uk/eslava-group/

Abstract: Photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic conversion of water and carbon dioxide using solar energy offers a clean solution to the world energy requirements of a sustainable future. Achieving its full potential depends on developing inexpensive photoelectrodes and photocatalysts that can efficiently absorb solar light and drive the photoinduced charges to react with water and carbon dioxide. In this talk, I will present recent developments we have achieved in the preparation of inexpensive photoanodes, photocathodes and photocatalyst composites. For example, we have achieved nanostructured TiO2 with exposed {0 1 0} facets for photoanodes, ferrite perovskites for photocathodes or halide perovskite composites with graphene or graphite for photoanodes and CO2 photocatalysts, following vapor deposition techniques, solution processing or mechanochemical syntheses.1-5 An extended characterisation help us relate their physical and charge-transfer properties to their performance, guiding us in their rational design for their optimization and future application.          

  1. TiO2 photoanodes with exposed {0 1 0} facets grown by aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition of a titanium oxo/alkoxy cluster, Regue, M.; Sibby, S.; Ahmet, I.Y.; Friedrich, D.; Abdi, F.F.; Johnson, A.L.; Eslava, S. J. Mater. Chem. A 2019, 7, 19161-19172.
  2. Graphite-protected CsPbBr3 perovskite photoanodes functionalised with water oxidation catalyst for oxygen evolution in water, Poli, I.; Hintermair, U.; Regue, M.; Sackville, E.; Baker, J.; Watson, T.; Eslava, S.; Cameron, P.J. Nature Comm. 2019, 10, 2097.
  3. Simultaneous Formation of FeOx Electrocatalyst Coating within Hematite Photoanodes for Solar Water Splitting, Walsh, D.; Zhang, J.; Dassanayake, R.; Regue, M.; Eslava, S., ACS Applied Energy Mater. 2019, 2, 2043–2052.
  4. Role of Cobalt−Iron (Oxy)Hydroxide (CoFeOx) as Oxygen Evolution Catalyst on Hematite Photoanodes, Zhang, J.; García-Rodríguez, R.; Cameron, P.J.; Eslava, S., Energy Environ. Sci. 2018, 11, 2972-2984.
  5. PrFeO3 Photocathodes Prepared Through Spray Pyrolysis, Freeman E, Kumar S, Thomas SR, Pickering H, Fermin DJ, Eslava S, CHEMELECTROCHEM 2020, Vol: 7, Pages: 1365-1372
  6. All-Inorganic CsPbBr3 Nanocrystals: Gram-Scale Mechanochemical Synthesis and Selective Photocatalytic CO2 Reduction to Methane, Kumar, S.; Regue, M.; Isaacs, M.A.; Freeman, E.; Eslava, S., ACS Applied Energy Materials 2020, 3 (5), 4509-4522

Dr Cecilia Mattevi

2D Materials: from synthesis to applications 

We investigate the precise synthesis of 2D materials and their assembly into three-dimensional functional devices for energy storage and energy conversion systems.  

The precise synthesis enables critical level of control through the crystal structure and doping, so that we can go beyond chemical composition of 2D materials.  

In this talk I will present our recent work in these directions.  

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