Research Projects

The development of new catalysts and processes for water-splitting could lead to a sustainable route for producing hydrogen, a crucial industrial chemical and future energy carrier. However, the rational design of improved catalysts faces challenges such as differences in synthesis methods and simplistic theoretical approaches. Advancements in nanotechnology have significantly influenced the design and manipulation of materials' intrinsic properties. Electrocatalytic activities can be improved by tuning the morphologies of metal chalcogenides with different morpololgy, such as nanosheet, nanoflower, nanorod, and nanospheres. Previous experiments and density function theory studies have shown that the edges of MoS₂ are active sites for hydrogen adsorption free energies (HER), and MoS₂ show morphology-dependent electrocatalytic activities. A large body of work has focused on controllable growth of MoS2 nanostructures and optimization of the number of active sites by altering experimental conditions. This proposal combines experimental and theoretical approaches to develop a descriptive model for HER activity on metal sulphides, which can be used to predict improved catalysts based on the highest turn-over frequency (TOF) for the systems.