1 PhD position is available at Curtin University (Perth, Western Australia) within the Project

TITLE:
New carbon nanotube electrocatalysts for water splitting and fuel cells (ARC Discovery Project DP150102044)

SUPERVISORS:
San Ping Jiang (Department of Chemical Engineering), Raffaella Demichelis (Department of Chemistry) and Julian D. Gale (Department of Chemistry)

SUMMARY:
The demand for clean, secure and sustainable energy sources has stimulated great interest in electrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies such as water splitting and fuel cells. The efficiency of water splitting and fuel cells is however strongly dependent on the activity of the electrocatalysts.
The objective of the proposal is to develop new electrocatalysts based on the recently discovered phenomena that carbon nanotubes with specific size and number of walls are very active and significantly promote the reaction of water splitting and fuel cells. The proposed project opens a new research field in the development of new electrocatalysts and photoelectrocatalysts for advanced energy conversion and storage technologies.

The PhD candidate will be mostly working on first principle modelling of carbon nanotubes. This work will provide predictive tools on the behaviour of the considered systems, as well as theoretical evidence for the reaction mechanisms and the observed properties.


DESIRED APPLICANT SKILLS:
A Degree (Hons) or Master Degree with Chemistry and/or Physics as main disciplines; good knowledge of English; basic knowledge in Computational/Theoretical Chemistry techniques

Applicants should sent their CV to raffaella.demichelis@curtin.edu.au by February 15th 2015