(2ac) Utilization of Renewable Energy Resources for New Energy Technologies: The Development of Cost-Effective and Stable Electro-Catalysts for Energy Conversion and Storage.

Life needs energy to sustain and more energy to thrive. As most renewable energy sources are intermittent, for the sustainable energy supply, energy should be converted into fuels and/or stored for the continuous supply. Objectives of my future research lie broadly in the Utilization of Renewable Energy Resources for New Energy Technologies such as electrochemical CO₂ reduction, fuel cell technology and hydrogen evolution reaction. Synthesis of electrocatalysts that have equivalent catalytic activities as that of precious metal-based state-of-the-art catalysts but without the use of precious metals could resolve future energy issues. Prepared catalyst should be viable and can be upgraded to large scale for commercial purposes. Understanding the reaction mechanism at the atomic level, at the interface of electrocatalysts and electrolytes will provide a sustainable solution for the slow electrochemical kinetics in these fields. Renewable energy technologies can also be exploited in energy intensive processes such as wastewater treatment and metal recovery processes.

Selected Contributions:

a) Electrocatalysis.

My research focus remained on the development of cost-effective and stable materials/electro-catalysts for energy conversion and storage. Most of the cost associated with energy conversion and storage relates to the cost of energy storage materials/catalysts. Therefore, it is important to develop energy storage materials/catalysts for the cheaper supply of renewable energy. During my research career, I emphasized the development of catalysts for water splitting and CO₂ reduction reaction along with electrode materials for electrochemical capacitors. I have developed a highly effective catalyst with very low Pt loading (~3 wt %) demonstrating remarkable activity and stability in hydrogen evolution reaction. Interestingly, the water dissociation at the surface of Pt was thermoneutral at room temperature while the adsorbed hydrogen atoms will spillover from the Pt surface to Ni and subsequently desorbed, resulting in much more activity as compared to Pt itself. This research article was selected in the top 100 articles in the field of chemistry in the year 2018 by the Scientific Reports Journal (Nature Family). Most of the citing articles declared this catalyst a state-of-the-art catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline conditions. The significance of this article is that it introduced a method to determine hydrogen spillover from one metal to another metal or support. (Scientific Reports 8, 2018, 2986).

I have also worked on projects to synthesize a new family of hybrid single atom transition metal catalysts (SACs) those are based on single metal atoms embedded into suitable carbon/or graphene supports and utilize them as effective and robust systems for water splitting, CO₂ reduction reaction and other most demanded catalytic transformations. This included the synthesis of new hybrid nanomaterials and then exploring their activity as electrocatalysts on the surface of the catalyst. More specifically, the project attempted to answer the following questions: 1) How the morphology and the surface structure of the supports affect the efficiency of the resulting nanomaterials in water splitting processes? What will be the driving force to achieve more robust catalysts? 2) What are the active sites that are responsible for the effective catalytic activity of some materials? 3) Could we systematically create desired active sites on the surface of the materials? 4) How does the nature of the metal affect the structural and chemical properties of the catalytic materials? 5) How does the catalytic activity differ between the catalysts made on the carbon supports of different porosity (mesoporous vs. microporous carbons)? 6) Is it possible to develop a catalyst with higher stability and efficiency by varying nature and/or the packing density of the metal atoms on the surface? 7) What is the in-depth reaction mechanism behind the catalytic activity of the materials? 8) Could we use the knowledge we get about the structure of the catalysts to further optimize the performance and long-term durability of the systems? (ACS Applied Energy Materials, 2020, 3, 9, 8739-8745. Applied Surface Science, 2021, 551, 149445. ChemCatChem, 2023, 15, 4, 1-10)

b) Electrochemical Capacitors.

I always emphasized on the energy storage mechanism and developed electrode materials for efficient energy storage systems. This work was published with the collaboration of Prof. Scott Donne at the University of Newcastle, Australia. In this work, I utilized the newest electrochemical technique Step Potential Electrochemical Spectroscopy (SPECS) to distinguish between different fragments of electrochemical capacitances. I confirmed that carbon hollow spheres with thin shells can be utilized in aqueous electrolytes for extraordinarily fast charging and discharging. Notably, the technique was highlighted by Prof. Gogotsi, an influential voice in the field of electrochemical capacitors, in his editorial publication, who mention this technique as a great breakthrough in the chemical analysis that allow differentiation between real and pseudo capacitances, a hard task for many existing methods. (Energy Storage Materials, 2020, 24, 550-556).

Teaching Interests

My field of research and education is Clean Energy and Chemical Engineering, during my span of education for me, the role of a teacher is not only to teach a subject but also to motivate and train students for their future roles in the corporate world as team leaders, particularly in Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Being a teacher is not just grading papers, developing assignments, and preparing lectures, it is a continuous approach to find new ways to teach and train students through the involvement of students and researchers. Towards academia and research my approach is to resolve the current issues of technology and professional manpower. Being a faculty member, it is an art to influence your students either in class or in lab to be a leader and professional in their related scope of work. Course work, assignments and activities should be designed for the definite learning objectives to change the usual paradigm of learning.

As a teaching professor, I hope to integrate new technologies of learning and teaching with the usual chemical engineering subjects with more practical approach that is required for modern industries and entrepreneurs. I will try my best for the development of quality teaching that will transform the student’s perception to apply knowledge in resolving real world issues and make them active learners with a critical thinking. I have experience of teaching as a teaching assistant where my professor always emphasized the understanding of core concepts and utilizing this knowledge for the development of one’s own research studies. I assisted my professor for the years of 2015, 2016 and 2017 for the subjects of Electrochemical Catalysis and Inorganic Chemistry and Catalysis. I am interested in teaching and developing subjects such as Chemical Industries, Catalysis, Physical Chemistry, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics. During my undergraduate studies, I enjoyed the subject named Chemical Engineering Principles because of its mathematical style and calculations.

In summary, for me teaching and learning is a continuous process with the change with time and situations. Teaching in the Department of Chemical Engineering will be an opportunity for me to share my knowledge and experiences with future leaders in the field of chemical technology.