ARC-funded DECRA project on the chemistry of room temperature liquid metals. The Ph.D. student will develop new catalytic materials for applications in green fuel synthesis and CO2 mitigation.
Industrial CO2 emissions are a major concern due to global warming. Negative emission technologies that actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere are believed to become a necessity for stabilizing the climate. The catalytic conversion of CO2 to synthetic fuels and other value-added products is a promising pathway to achieve this goal, while simultaneously providing a method for storing renewable energy generated from intermittent sources such as solar cells and wind. One key challenge encountered when designing CO2 reduction catalysts is catalyst-deactivation due to coking.
Non-toxic, room temperature liquid metals have recently been discovered to be highly resistant to coking. Furthermore, the surface of liquid metals can be tuned through alloy design, providing an ideal platform for creating highly active catalysts.
This project will investigate novel catalytic systems with applications in CO2 reduction. Furthermore, the project will focus on novel prototype designs that take full advantage of the liquid state of the electrode. The materials will be produced utilizing methods that have been developed in our research group. The synthesis of the materials is straightforward and limited pre-existing synthetic chemistry skills are required. The PhD candidate will prepare the materials and will then conduct a thorough characterisation using multiple electron microscopy based techniques as well as optical and electronic characterisations. The developed materials will then be integrated into traditional and emerging prototype reactor designs.