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Principal InvestigatorWilson A. SmithWilson A. Smith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology. He earned his BS in Physics from American University in 2005, and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Georgia in 2010, where he studied the synthesis and applications of nanostructured photocatalysts. From there he moved to Paris, France as a postdoctoral research associate at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie/Sorbonne where he studied the defect structure of doped semiconductors for solar water purification. In 2012 he began his current position at TU Delft, where his group focuses on fundamental processes related to photoelectrochemical water splitting, electrocatalytic water oxidation, and CO2 reduction catalysis using inorganic nanostructured materials. A specific emphasis is placed on studying only earth abundant materials, and using in-situ techniques to probe the material properties and reaction processes during (photo)electrochemical testing.
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Postdocs
Dowon BaeDowon Bae received his BSc and MSc (Honors, 2006 and 2008) from the Russian State Technological University named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky. After research activities within solar cells at the LG Innotek (South Korea; 2008 – 2012), he joined the VILLUM Center for the Science of Sustainable Fuels and Chemicals at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where he conducted his PhD study and Postdoc under the supervision of Prof. Ib Chorkendorff. His research has focused on PEC (photoelectrochemical) device design for solar water splitting. Presently, he is a Postdoc at the Prof. Wilson Smith’s lab, the Delft University of Technology with LEaDing Fellowship (Marie-Curie COFUND) support. His research concerns PEC rechargeable flow-battery system.
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Tom BurdynyThomas (Tom) Burdyny is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage Group researching electrochemical CO2 reduction to value-added products. He earned his BEng and MASc in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Victoria in 2010 and 2013, respectively, and his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto in 2017, where he studied system-based approaches to improve CO2 reduction kinetics. Beginning his PDF in 2018, he is focused on engineering electrochemical systems to enable the active catalytic material and surrounding reaction environment to function in concert with one another and achieve enhanced performance metrics than would be possible otherwise.
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Recep Kas |
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Ming MaMing Ma (马明) received his Master degree in Materials Science and Engineering (M Sc) in 2011 at China University of Petroleum and his PhD at the group of Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage (MECS), Department of Chemical Engineering, Delft University of Technology, where his is now a postdoc. His research mainly focuses on heterogeneous nanocatalysts for the electrochemical reduction of CO2, including the fabrication, characterization, catalytic performance and reaction mechanism of nanostructured metallic catalysts.
His publications can be found: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ming_Ma17 |
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Nathan T. NesbittNathan Nesbitt is a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft in the group of Dr. Wilson Smith. He received his Bachelors of Science in Physics from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2011 and his Ph. D. in Physics from Boston College in 2018. His research focus is the discovery of new electrocatalysts for CO2 electrolysis to create value-added chemicals. Specifically, he uses bulk electrolysis and both electrochemical scanning atomic force microscopy (EC-AFM) and electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM) for in-situ studies of how new materials perform as electrocatalysts, and the effect their nanostructuring has.
Nathan is also interested in expanding the diversity and integrity of the scientific community; he has worked with the youth educational program MA Envirothon and helped develop the Materials Research Society Nelson Buck Robinson Science and Technology Award for Renewable Energy and the Boston College Graduate Employee Union - United Auto Workers. Outside the lab he is an outdoors enthusiast, having grown up in Massachusetts near the White Mountains in New Hampshire. (publications available here) (email: N.T.Nesbitt(at)tudelft.nl) |
PhD Students
Marijn BlommaertMarijn Blommaert received his BSc and MSc degrees at the KU Leuven in (Bio)chemical Engineering Techniques. His master thesis was focused on the development of a porous monolithic water splitting cell with abundant electrocatalysts. In October ’17 he started a PhD focused on electrochemical applications with a bipolar membrane, allowing to operate in optimal conditions for water splitting or CO2 conversion to syngas at low and high current densities. In his PhD he also focuses on cell design to improve performance of electrochemical cells.
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Divya BohraResearch Objectives: Divya uses computational tools and theoretical frameworks to perform mechanistic studies on CO2 electroreduction catalysts with a focus on 2e- reduction products. She is interested in the competitive and synergistic interplay of elementary steps at the atomic level that determine the observed macroscopic behavior of heterogeneous catalysts. In addition, a major focus of her studies is the effect of the electrochemical double layer on the reactions of interest.
Background: Divya is a Chemical Engineer with an MSc (Cum Laude) from TU Delft and B.Tech (Honors) from IIT Kharagpur, India. Before joining Delft as a PhD student, she was working as a Process Technologist at Shell Nederland Chemie, Moerdijk (NL) where she provided technology support for one of the world’s largest Ethyl Benzene plants. Divya likes to paint, read graphic novels and takes the business of movie watching and podcast listening rather seriously. Twitter handle: @HCWoman (https://twitter.com/HCWoman) |
Sanjana Chandrashekar |
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Ibadillah A. DigdayaDigda obtained his bachelor degree in Engineering Physics at Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. He earned his master degree in Sustainable Energy Technology from Delft University of Technology and completed his master thesis in Photovoltaic Materials and Devices group, focusing on optical enhancement for silicon heterojunction solar cells. He is currently working on his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Delft University of Technology, under Dr. Wilson Smith and Prof. dr. Bernard Dam. His research interests include solar energy conversion and semiconductor photoelectrochemistry. His research focuses on interfacial energetics and charge transfer of semiconducting photoelectrodes for solar hydrogen evolution and water oxidation using silicon solar absorber and earth-abundant catalysts.
In his spare time, he enjoys reading popular science books, travelling, and photography. He loves playing basketball and hiking. |
Nienke J. FiretNienke Firet was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She studied Molecular Science and Technology, a joint Bachelor of Science program by the University of Leiden and Delft. In 2012 she started two Master’s: Chemical Engineering and Sustainable Energy Technology at the University of Twente. Her graduation project was entitled: ‘Photocatalytic silicon micropillars: passivation and functionalization of silicon with organic monolayers via light-promoted hydrosilylation’. She did an internship on perovskite solar cells at CSIRO, a research company in Australia. She received her Master of Science degrees Cum Laude in 2015.
Currently she is a PhD candidate under the supervision of Wilson Smith in the Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage group. Her work focusses on spectroscopic methods to understand electrocatalytic CO2 reduction and she also studies doping mechanisms in perovskite solar cells. |
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Martin Kolen |
Kai LiuKai Liu (刘楷) is currently a PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Wilson Smith at Delft University of Technology. He earned his Bachelor and Master degree in Material Science and Engineering from Hainan University in 2012 and 2015, where he studied the synthesis of nanostructured catalysts for photoelectrocatalysis. He is focusing on developing electrocatalysts to convert CO2 into value-added chemicals within various local reaction environments to study the reaction mechanism and achieve enhanced performance.
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Davide Ripepi
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Mark SassenburgMark is a PhD student working under supervision of Wilson Smith. By completing a bachelor in Molecular Science & Technology (TU Delft & Leiden University) and a master in Sustainable Energy Technology (TU Delft) he obtained a broad basis to work in the field of renewable electrochemistry. His bachelor and master theses were performed in the MECS group as well, studying bipolar membranes and gas diffusion electrodes, respectively, making integration within the group fluent.
Although the main topic of Marks research is electrochemical CO2 reduction, the exact direction of his work is flexible. Currently the focus of his work lies with exploring the possibility of utilizing heterogeneous CO2-rich gas mixtures originating from point sources as opposed to the use of ideal 100% CO2 streams. An example of this is the potential of the partial conversion of industrial blast furnace gas to value-added products by investigating the effect of stream composition on the activity, selectivity and stability of gas diffusion electrodes. |
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Anirudh VenugopalAnirudh obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering (with distinction) in 2014 from the National Institute of Technology Calicut, India. After a brief spell as a trainee at Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (Kochi Refinery), he moved to the Netherlands for his Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering at TU Delft. His master thesis was titled “A fundamental study on plasmonic hot electron injection using photoelectrochemistry”. In 2017, he graduated from TU Delft with a Honours and cum laude for his Master of Science degree. He immediately joined back the Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage (MECS) group as a full time PhD student, working under the supervision of Dr. Wilson Smith. His research focuses on studying the semiconductor – electrolyte interface of photoelectrochemical systems, making use of in-operando and surface science techniques.
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Kailun YangKailun Yang is currently a PhD student under the supervision of Wilson Smith in the MECS group, Department of Chemical Engineering, TU Delft. She obtained her MSc degree from Renmin University of China (RUC) in 2017, working on photocatalysis. Now her research focuses on the electrochemical reduction of CO2. She is interested in the mechanism study of CO2 reduction based on Cu electrodes, including reaction pathways, mass transport effects, etc. Later she would like to apply knowledge gained from liquid cell studies to gas diffusion electrodes, trying to make electrochemical reduction of CO2 more practical for industrial applications.
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Alumni
Dr. David A. Vermaas - Postdoc 2014~2016 (now Assistant Professor at TU Delft)
Dr. Ming Ma - PhD
Dr. Marco Valenti - PhD
Dr. Bartek Trzesniewski - PhD
Dr. Ming Ma - PhD
Dr. Marco Valenti - PhD
Dr. Bartek Trzesniewski - PhD
Bartek J. TrzesniewskiBartek Trześniewski received his BSc and MSc degrees in Materials Engineering from AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland. His master dissertation concerned research on thermoelectric heat flux sensors. He completed his PhD at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, in the laboratory of Wilson A. Smith. His research interests focused on the development of efficient metal oxide photoanode materials for solar water splitting, nickel based oxygen evolution catalysts and in situ electrochemical spectroscopy techniques.
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