News

Dr. Dyovani Coelho is from Brazil and was granted with a Sao Paulo Foundation Research fellowship to do a postdoctoral research internship at the EEC group from September/2022 to August/2023.

Dyovani received his Ph.D. at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His thesis was focused on the underpotential deposition of Bi, Pb, and Cu on electrodeposited selenium film. After that, he began his postdoctoral at the Federal University of Sao Carlos where he studied the use of photoelectrocatalysts based on BiVO4 and WO3 to water oxidation. Now he is investigating the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) on metal phosphides based on Ni, Co, and Fe and the morphological and composition changes that follow the reactions. To do that, he will track the process by Scanning Flow Cell online with Inductive Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (SFC-ICP-MS). The synthesis of new catalysts must pass through an intense investigation aiming strategies to produce inexpensive, efficient, and stable electrolyzers.

Kamyar Parsi is a master student in Process Engineering at the Hochschule Offenburg who is joining the team to conduct his master’s thesis.

His master’s thesis will focus on the investigation of Silver as a catalyst for the purpose of carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) by implementing a gas diffusion electrode (GDE) setup. To do so, he will investigate the pH and current density dependence of silver catalyst and its stability during the process using a scanning flow cell (SFC) coupled with an on-line inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS).

Yunsheng Qiu, a doctoral candidate from the research group of CLINT (Catalysis at Liquid Interfaces; CRT 1452), joined our group in August 2022.

Yunsheng received his M.Sc. in Material Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, focusing on the efficient catalyst design for the electrochemical processes of CO₂RR/ORR/OER/HER. For his research here, Yunsheng will be focusing on accessing the stability of organic/ionic-liquid modified interface under electrocatalytic conditions. The interested metallic catalyst surfaces are monocrystalline facets.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate meetings, founded in 1951, are one of the most prestigious meetings for Early Career Researchers. After a thorough two-step selection process, we are proud to announce that both Daniel Escalera López and Konrad Ehelebe will be taking part in the 71^st Nobel Laureate Meeting dedicated to Chemistry taking place from June 26^th to July 1^st in Lindau. Lindau Meetings aim to attract the best young scientists in the world to interact about the most pressing topics in their field, giving room to network, inspire, and “exchange generations, cultures and disciplines”. For that, they will have the opportunity to do with along with 30 Nobel Laureates! Wish you both an exciting time in Lindau, and even better discussions for future ideas!

We were pleased to get the news that Daniel and Ken were awarded by the “Energy Technology” and “Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry” divisions of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) an individual travel grant to present their work at the upcoming 241^st ECS Meeting. The conference will be taking place in Vancouver (May 29^th-June 2^nd) and will be the first on-site ECS annual meeting after the two-year hiatus imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. If you want to learn more about what Daniel and Ken will be presenting, please follow the links below:

https://ecs.confex.com/ecs/241/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/157853

https://ecs.confex.com/ecs/241/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/154750

We wish both the best of luck with their presentations, and we hope they get the most out of the meeting!

Alexandre Nozadze is a bachelor student in material science at the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg.

After getting his first insights into electrochemistry during an exchange semester at the ETH Zürich, he will now join our group for his bachelor thesis.

Within the GDE sub-team, he will investigate Pt electrocatalysts with solid and porous carbon supports using the gas diffusion electrode (GDE) setup.

Check here! Our new publication in ACS Energy Letters "Benchmarking fuel cell electrocatalysts using gas diffusion electrodes: Inter-lab comparison and best practices" is among the most read articles!

M.Sc. Tuani Carla Gentil is performing a research internship abroad scholarship (BEPE) for Ph.D. students funded by the Research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo – FAPESP, and she has joined us in March 2022. Tuani received her M.Sc. in Universidade Federal do ABC, Brazil. During her dissertation, she focused the study on the addition of CeO₂-nanorods in hybrid electrocatalysts based on PtSn for ethanol oxidation reaction in acid media. Her doctoral research is related to development of nanostructured electrocatalysts based on Pt, Pd, and low-cost oxides for energy and environment applications, and in her research at HI-ERN she will evaluate the dissolution of electrocatalysts based on palladium, supported by high surface area carbon, destined for the anode of alkaline direct liquid cells. Thus, she will study the stability of these electrocatalysts by means of accelerated stress tests using a rotating ring disk electrode (RRDE) to evaluate the dissolution of metals which will be investigated quantitatively using a microelectrochemical scanning flow cell (SFC) coupled with an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (On-line ICP-MS).

It took us quite some time to bring this work to the end, but now we proudly present our GDE inter-lab comparison in ACS Energy Letters. In this work, we show, that comparable ORR catalyst benchmarking is possible with different GDE half-cells and in various laboratories. We set a benchmark for GDE testing with three commercial catalysts, we propose Best Practices for successful GDE measurements and we compare the various cell designs introduced in the literature so far. A must-read for everyone working on GDE half-cell setups for fuel cell reactions.

More details can be found on ACS Energy Letters.

Our master's students, Elisabeth, Marvin, and Nico, have successfully defended their master's theses!

Their topics are the following.

Elisabeth: Evaluation of the pH-dependent activity stability relationships of Ir catalysts for water electrolysis.

Marvin: Modified electrocatalyst interfaces for electrocatalytic applications.

Nico: Evaluation of catalyst layers for anion exchange membrane fuel cells using a gas diffusion electrode half-cell setup.

More details can be found in our future publications!