PhD Research Student

Email: ibad.ibadurrohman12@imperial.ac.uk

Office 425, Bone Building

Department of Chemical Engineering 

Biography

Date

Role

2012 - present

PhD Research Student, REaCT group, Imperial College London

2010 - 2011

M.Sc in Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan Univsersity of Science and Technology

2009 - 2010

M.Eng in Chemical Engineering, University of Indonesia

2005 - 2009

B.Eng in Chemical Engineering, University of Indonesia

Research

The idea of converting the solar energy into electricity and/or storable chemical energy (e.g. hydrogen) has been translated into extensive research for decades in many laboratories across the globe. Despite these tremendous efforts, an efficient, sustainable, environmentally friendly and economical system of solar conversion is yet to be found. My project is aiming at developing semiconductor-based nano(or sub-micro)films to be employed as efficient and robust photoanodes in a photoelectrochemical cell, producing hydrogen via water splitting upon solar illumination.

The films are prepared by a spray pyrolysis method which is well-known for its simplicity, versatility, low cost, and short processing time. Variety and reproducibility of the produced films are adjusted and controlled simply by tuning the composition of precursor solutions and the operating conditions under which the deposition is carried out. By utilising these means, important features of the semiconducting films (e.g. optical properties, thickness, surface morphology, recombination rate, chemical composition, degree of crytallisation, etc) can be conveniently modified. In addition, organic wastes are also used as sacrificial hole scavengers in order to hinder the recombination of photocharges (electron-hole pairs) hence enhancing the photocurrents as well as reducing the required external bias for the hydrogen evolution to take place.

The outcome of this research is expected to give a significant contribution in synthesising a green photoconversion system, in which energy is produced from renewable sources (solar light and water) and, at the same time, organic pollutants are photodegraded.