Research

Our research focuses on the electrochemical investigations on advanced functional materials for renewable energy harvesting and its storage so that the use of traditional fossil fuels can be minimized. The main goal of the research is to design and develop the nano-electrocatalysts based on nanoparticles anchored to a suitable support. Metal nanoparticles and semiconductor quantum dots are being studied in this regard. Carbon based materials such as CNTs, graphene, and reduced graphene oxide as well as semiconductor oxides such as TiO2, ZnO are used as a support material.

Our group concentrates mainly on the following aspects,

(i) fabricating nano-electro-catalysts for the electrochemical conversion of organic pollutants such as CO2 into fuels and/or useful chemical feedstock,

(ii) Electrochemical and spectro-electrochemical studies on the advanced functional materials in order to characterize and tune their electronic band structure, and

(iii) developing photo-electrocatalysts based on semiconductor quantum dots for photovoltaic solar cell applications.

Electrochemical techniques like cyclic voltammetry, DPV, quartz crystal micro-balance, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, amperometry, coulometry, etc. are routinely being used for this purpose.

We also work on studying mechanistic aspects and electrode kinetics of the organic reactions especially electro-catalytic reactions in ionic liquids in collaboration with group of Dr. Mohsin Bhat at University of Kashmir.