Research Projects

Porous silicon, despite its large surface area, has not been explored for its potential use as electrodes in capacitive deionization (CDI) technology. Its tailorable morphology and ability to adsorb ions from water with high salt concentrations make it an interesting candidate for CDI technology. This proposal aims to synthesize porous silicon with tailored morphologies and pore dimensions, analyzing their dependence on substrate dopant species, concentration, and crystalline orientation. The influence of illumination on the anodisation process will also be studied. A reactor/cell will be fabricated for anodizing silicon substrates with larger areas, providing ports for controlled illumination. The second part of the work will focus on using synthesized porous silicon layers as electrodes in CDI, modeling CDI using porous silicon electrodes, and evaluating their performance. The synthesised porous silicon layers will be correlated with their ion adsorption capacity, and a CDI cell with optimal morphologies will be built for water desalination applications.