Operando spectroelectrochemical studies on the water splitting mechanisms on metal oxide (photo)electrocatalysts

Palestrante: Prof. Dr.  Camilo Arturo Mesa Zamora (Universidade de Jaume I – Espanha)

Data: 16/05 (terça-feira)
Horário: 16h00

Local: Auditório “Inés Joekes”

Resumo:  (Photo)electrocatalysis has emerged as a promising process to store renewable energy into fuels and high added-value chemicals to decarbonise the energy and fine chemical sectors. As such, the water splitting process to generate H2 and O2 is of particular interest, even though both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions (HER and OER, respectively) are kinetically challenging, especially when using Earth-abundant metal oxide and chalcogenide catalysts. The efficiency of these catalysts does not only depend on the nature of the metal oxide/chalcogenide, but also on their physical characteristics such as composition, magnetic susceptibility and doping variations, amongst others. However, the reaction mechanism of the HER and OER on metal oxides as well as the nature of the efficiency loses remains elusive. Obtaining such detailed mechanistic and kinetic knowledge requires the use of operando spectroscopic techniques that can probe the system under operating conditions. In this talk, I will present recent advances on the use of operando spectroscopic techniques, in particular UV-Vis spectroelectrochemistry, to shine light into the kinetics and reaction mechanism of HER and OER.  1. Mesa, C. A.; Pastor, E.; Francàs, L. UV-Vis operando spectroelectrochemistry for (photo)electrocatalysis: Principles and guidelines. Current Opinion in Electrochemistry 2022, 35, 101098. 2. Mesa, C. A.; Francàs, L.; et al. Multihole water oxidation catalysis on haematite photoanodes revealed by operando spectroelectrochemistry and DFT. Nat. Chemistry, 2020, 12, 82-89. 3.Fernández-Climent, R.; Redondo, J.; et al. Efficient and Highly Durable Porous Cu2S films for Hydrogen Evolution Electrocatalysis at Neutral pH. ACS Catal. In revision

Bio and Research Interests: Camilo graduated as Chemist from the National University of Colombia in 2008, followed by a Masters degree in Materials Science at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Sweden) and the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2011. After a teaching position in Colombia Camilo joined the Durrant group at Imperial College London to pursue his PhD in 2014 and graduated in 2019. His research interests focus on photo- and electrocatalytic materials for solar fuels production, especially for water and organic substrates oxidation reactions. Camilo’s master thesis focused on understanding the role of cobalt based overlayers on hematite phoroanodes and in his PhD thesis he studied the limiting kinetic and mechanistic parameters of oxidation reactions on metal-oxide photoanodes for solar fuels production. Camilo obtained the first prize for both, best masters and PhD thesis at University of Bologna and Imperial College London, respectively. He has authored 13 papers in research journals, including JACS and Nature Chemistry, and a book chapter, with over 700 citations and h-index 9. Camilo is an active member of the Institute of Advanced Materials (INAM) at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló from 2020 and is focusing his research on developing and understanding the limiting factors of metal oxide electrocatalysts for organic substrates oxidation reactions.

Prof. Responsável: Raphael Nagao de Sousa