Overview
Matthew is currently an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London. His research interests lie in developing robust, low-cost, non-toxic, novel functional organic materials and catalytic systems for the generation of clean and renewable energy, specifically in the areas of water splitting, photocatalysis, biomass oxidation, and electrocatalysis.
During his PhD, he designed, synthesised, and fully characterised organic conjugated polymers for organic photovoltaic (OPV) and photocatalytic applications. This involved developing dispersed conjugated nanoparticle (CNP) systems blended from two organic semiconducting polymers, which were used in OPV devices and as hydrogen evolution photocatalysts (HEPs) to great effect, resulting in several published research articles (Nat. Mater., Nat. Commun., Adv. Energy Mater.) and filing of a patent.
These photocatalysts absorbed photons over a much larger proportion of the solar spectrum than traditional inorganic HEPs, which in turn translated to higher H2 production efficiencies. This was accomplished by tuning CNP fabrication conditions which were able to control the internal structure of the HEPs and transform them from a typical core-shell structure into a highly intermixed two-component system. This change in morphology was successfully investigated through the use of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and led to a ten-fold increase in efficiency and to an unprecedentedly high H2 evolution rate of over 60 mmol h−1 g−1, which is the highest for organic HEPs reported to date.
His research so far has led to the publication of more than 7 articles in high-profile journals, which have been cited more than 700 times to date.