Meet the researchers: The Unite!Energy Doctoral Candidates
Miguel Amaro Ferreira
DC4 – Photoelectrocatalytic materials prepared by mechanochemical methods as photoelectrodes for hydrogen production
Host institution 1
Politecnico di Torino (PoliTo)
Supervisor: Professor Simelys Hernandez
Host institution 2
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Supervisor: Professor Lluís Soler
My project
​To prepare novel photocatalytic materials using mechanochemical milling to increase the photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) performance of photoelectrodes for hydrogen generation from water splitting, and to design an efficient photoelectrolyser device using the obtained photoelectrocatalysts.
About me
I enrolled in the bachelor’s degree in chemistry in the Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto in 2019, where, in 2022, I had my first research experience working as a student researcher in the LAQV Requimte research center, working on the synthesis of ORR catalysts from metalo-organic complexes for fuel cells. It was during this project that my fascination with the potential applications of hydrogen as an energy source started bloom.
Credit: Katrin Binner/TU Darmstadt
Later in 2022, I enrolled in the master’s degree in chemistry, also in the Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto, in which I specialized in functionalized materials and surfaces for sustainability.
Once again, my interest on hydrogen, it’s potential and current shortcomings, lead me to inquire more and more about it and keep researching on a related field during my master’s. As such, while in the second year of my master’s, I developed my master thesis on the Thermodynamic Properties of Carbazole Derivatives for Hydrogen Carrying, in the CIQUP research group. During this period, I spent two months of 2024 in “Sapienza” University of Rome, under the Erasmus+ program. I graduated from the master’s in October 2024.
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