In a top down approach, my research interests lie in the areas of inorganic chemistry, solid-state electrochemistry, crystallography and material science. More precisely, in my dissertation, I studied how a coordination chemistry synthesis technique affected the crystallographic electronic structure which ultimately altered the material science electrochemical properties. Current investigations and conversations with other people working in related fields has generated a number of interesting questions that relates to better understanding the fundamental science which govern solid-state and soft chemical method synthesis techniques through the use of in situ type studies.
Current research focuses on the use of X-ray’s as a method to explore (in situ; both time and temperature) the perceived solid-state reactions between group 1 metal carbonates and period 4 transitional metal oxides. Journal investigations suggested this reaction is purely a first order solid state one step process. Both TGA-DSC kinetic analysis using Friedman and powder X-ray Diffraction (HRXRD at APS) analysis using Rietveld refinement suggest this is a very complex liquid-solid reaction. One of the most important pieces of evidence I uncovered is this reaction contains three distinct regions that can be describe as an reversible, irreversible and diffusion control (Fisk’s 2nd Law) before the core backbone transitional metal oxide rearranges to the desired electrochemical active material.
My recent finding has brought about many more fundamental science type questions which when answered will contribute to a better understanding of diffusion at the liquid-solid interface. This has lead to my current research interest which includes developing cheap and affordable green chemical methods for synthesizing advance energy storage materials. Since synthesis techniques have shown to affect both negatively and positively the quality of advance energy storage materials, this leads to an indirect interest which is to use a traditional solid-state synthesis method to monitor the reaction and reaction kinetics during the development of new advance energy storage materials. By monitoring the solid-state reaction kinetics, one can better understand how cation(s) mixing and/or dopants affects electronic structure, Lithium migration barriers, thermal expansion and structural stability affects electrochemical properties.
One of my most important research interests is to better understand how atomic layer alterations and subsequent defect affects the electrochemical properties of advance energy storage materials. If I can control particle size, morphology and unit cell atoms, volume, defects and other properties like spheres, cube, flakes, and nano-tube from synthesis techniques this will afford the opportunities to build suitable energy storage devices for very specific industries. A connection can be made from the cycle-ability, stability and voltage profile to electronic structure.
Summary:
1). Develop and study new mix metal oxides materials for the use in batteries, fuel cells, catalysis and photoelectrochemical cells. Specific interest is to study how the electronic structure changes as a dopant is added to traditional transitional metal oxide use as energy storage materials. What new or defect structures arise from doping transitional metal oxides. How does various changes in the electronic structure effects the electrochemical properties of metal oxides.
2). Design environmentally friendly, cheap and low temperature methods for the synthesis of nano to micro size particles.
3). Use in situ X-ray diffraction and TGA-FTIR methods to study phase changes and reaction kinetics.
4). Use Density Functional Theory (DFT) to predict probable transition states of the solid-solid and liquid-solid state reaction mechanism.
