The synthesis of nanostructured materials to date has typically involved production and characterisation of samples with small geometric area (a few square centimetres). This project is aimed at addressing the synthesis and engineering aspects involoved with increased scale production of nanostructured films.Appreciation of the effects of reaction environment on deposit quality will make possible the production of uniform nanostructured deposits on a scale that is of technological interest.Novel nanostructured coatings will be prepared using surfactant templating methods and correlations between reaction conditions and resultant deposit properties will be established. A fundamental investigation of the reaction environment with an electrochemical engineering approach (combining experimental work and simulations) will facilitate uniform current and potential distributions in a controlled flow reactor.The synthesis of such coatings, having geometric areas of circa 100 cm2, will enable their evaluation in a number of electrochemical applications. For example, the operational and performance characteristics in Li-ion battery, supercapacitor and H2-air fuel cell device environments will be established.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

The fossil fuel reserves of the world are rapidly diminishing and are also the prime cause for global warming. Solar energy represents a major, largely untapped energy source which could easily satisfy current and future global energy demands. Any solar energy conversion device must be inexpensive per m2, efficient and long-lasting. In this programme, novel, inorganic water-splitting systems, called macro-photocatalytic diode cells, MPCDs, utilising a range of new and established visible-light absorbing photocatalyst materials, will be developed for splitting water using sunlight in separate compartments. The latter feature is important as it will minimise, if not eliminate, the various efficiency-lowering recombination reactions associated with mixed product generation. The work programme involves a number of novel aspects including: the preparation of new nanoparticulate, crystalline photocatalyst materials, fabricating them into different novel photodiode formats and the synthesis and utilisation of new redox catalysts. The use of nanoparticulate semiconductor photocatalysts, made via continuous hydrothermal flow synthesis, CHFS, in conjunction with gel casting for robust porous supports, is a particularly important and novel advance, as too is the proposed combinatorial approach to the preparation of photocatalyst films by CVD. The project will develop a significant amount of the underpinning science required for the fabrication of the final, optimised, efficient MPCDs and include a study of the underlying reaction mechanisms, using time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy. The proposal offers a route to achieving a step change in efficiency for energy capture from the sun and aims to deliver efficient, scalable demonstrators of the MPCD technology, suitable for development into pilot plant systems in the second phase of funding.