Director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry
University of Cologne, Germany
Prof. Sanjay Mathur, Director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at University of Cologne, Germany.
Metal oxide nanostructures with hetero-contacts and phase boundaries offer unique platform for designing materials architectures for energy harvesting applications. As viable alternative to water electrolysis, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting has emerged as a competitive technology being capable of converting solar energy directly into chemical energy using stable and efficient photocatalysts for solar hydrogen production. Besides the size and surface effects, the modulation of electronic behaviour due to junction properties leads to modified surface states that promote selective decomposition of analytes and adsorbates. The growing possibilities of engineering nanostructures in various compositions (pure, doped, composites, heterostructures) and forms has intensified the research on the integration of different functional material units in a single architecture to obtain new photocatalytic materials. Even though the potential of hematite thin films for water splitting applications are widely accepted, researchers are still tackling the ‘rust challenge’. We report here on the influence of external magnetic fields applied parallel or perpendicular to the substrate during plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of hematite (α-Fe2O3) nanostructures. Hematite films grown from iron precursors showed pronounced changes in crystallographic textures depending upon whether CVD was performed with or without external magnetic field. Investigations on the water splitting properties of the hematite films in a photoelectrochemical reactor revealed superior photocurrent values of hematite photoanodes deposited in external magnetic field. In addition, the role of emerging hybrid perovskites in tandem PEC-PV set-ups for photo-assisted water splitting reactions will be discussed.
Biography
Sanjay Mathur is a Chair Professor and Director of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Cologne, Germany. He is also the Director of the Institute of Renewable Energy Sources at the Xian Jiao Tong University, Xian, China and a World Class University Professor at the Chonbuk University in Korea. He is a Visiting Professor in the Institute of Global Innovation Research at TUAT, Japan and a SPARC Faculty at IIT Madras, India. His research interests focus on application of nanomaterials and advanced ceramics for energy technologies. He holds 11 patents and has authored/ co-authored over 500 original research publications (h index, 64) and has edited several books. He serves as the Editor for Journal of Electroceramics, and for NanoEnergy. He is an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics and Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and ASM International. He was awarded the Honorary Doctorate of the Vilnius University in 2016. He is an Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics and Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and the European Academy of Science. Since 2018, he chairs the Academic Affairs Committee of the Materials Research Society. He was awarded the R C Mehrotra Lifetime Achievement Award of Indian Science Congress Association in January 2020. He was nominated (2021-22) as the President-elect of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS).