21^st International Conference on Advanced Energy Materials and Research July 11-12, 2019 Zurich, Switzerland

N M Ferreira is a PhD in Physics Engineering; currently is a Researcher at i3N, Physics Department at University of Aveiro, Portugal. He had participated in several R&D projects on Material Science. He have experience as researcher in study and development of ceramics-based materials, prepared through conventional methods by melting, solid stated, with particular focus on laser processing (crystal growth – LFZ and surface sintering/modification). Present sample characterization skills include various techniques such as, electrical conductivity and magnetic properties of various oxide materials. Current focus materials are thermoelectrics, ferroelectrics and glass matrices doped with transition metals and rare earth for energy storage and conversion applications. Main expertise is related to structural, magnetic and electrical properties of materials prepared by laser processing.

Traditionally, ceramic companies are completely re-fired with the ceramic pieces in order to correct small defects with few square millimetres, in sanitary ware pieces. This process represents high energy consumption, increasing the cost production. This work presents an attempt to solve this problem using a CO2 laser technology to repair those defects, preventing the extra costs associated with a re-firing. Until now several approaches had been done using laser technology to solve the problem without success. Despite the method shows promising results, all situation led to the development of a circular crack around the defect, due to the elevated thermal gradients caused by laser radiation. A new approach was done using new materials based on sol-gel technique to fill out the cracks after laser treatment. The idea is the use of sol-gel based material and the re-firing post laser processing at lower temperature and time in order to confer the aesthetic aspect required for the commercialization of the pieces.

Roopathy Mohan has pursued her Master’s Degree in Chemistry from National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli, India. Currently, she is a Doctoral student in Fuel cell and Electrochemistry group, Ariel University, Israel under the supervision of Prof. Alex Schechter. Her research work mainly focuses on the study of carbon-based oxygen reduction electrocatalysts treated by cold plasma. She has her expertise in designing plasma assisted carbon supported metal free and metal nitrogen and carbon (MNC) catalysts for electrochemical oxygen reduction reaction.

Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is pivotal in renewable energy technologies such as in fuel cells and metal-air batteries. ORR is most fundamental and an important cathodic reaction of the electrochemical fuel cell. However, owing to its sluggish nature at the cathode side of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), there is an urgent demand for a cost-effective efficient catalyst with fast ORR kinetics. Though in practice, Pt-based electrodes and N-doped carbon material shows promising ORR activity, the durability, cost and their preparation methods restricts their wide commercialization. To address this issue, we developed metal and nitrogen-free carbon nanotubes (CNTs) through simple and mild plasma treatment. Oxygen plasma treated CNTs were used as a model for comparative study of oxygen reduction on single (SWCNT) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWCNT). Cold oxygen plasma surface modification leads to chemical doping of oxygen functionalities into the sp2 carbon structure of the CNTs, charge redistribution around the doped heteroatom oxygen that promotes ORR activity. The defect sites generated owing to oxygen dopant in CNTs was confirmed by Raman spectra and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) surface composition. Hence, the results indicate that plasma treated SWCNT are more effective ORR catalyst compared to MWCNT due to the inherent structure of SWCNT that can access more defects and surface functional groups than MWCNT. Interestingly, for the first time we explored the comparison of oxygen functional group doped and defect induced SWCNT and MWCNT for ORR activity. Therefore, the catalytic property is dependent on the dopant (oxygenated) concentration at the wall and is related to the increase in defects as well as ORR current. The intriguing wall structure of SWCNT permits high functionality in oxygenated species and reinforce superior stability in ORR than MWCNT.

Svetlana Lyssenko is a Master student in Fuel cell and Electrochemistry group, Ariel University, Israel under the supervision of Prof. Alex Schechter. The key findings of her research work are to study the high surface area carbon supported platinum-based anode catalysts for methanol, methyl formate and formic acid electrooxidation for fuel cell applications.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells have been investigated as an alternative power source for portable electronic devices and electric vehicles utilizing mainly hydrogen or small organic molecules (SOM) as fuel source and oxygen form air as an oxidant, at the anode and cathode respectively. The advantages of this type of fuel cells are high energy conversion efficiency directly to electricity and low operation temperatures. The slow kinetics of fuel oxidation (i.e. methanol, ethanol etc.) is the major obstacle for the commercialization of fuel cell technology based on these fuels, in addition to the high price of Pt and Pd based catalyst typically used in the anode. An addition of oxophilic second or third atom, such as Ru, Sn, Ni, etc., to Pt or Pd improves the catalytic activity and tolerance towards the presence of poisoning species during the oxidation of SOM. Carbon materials are commonly used as support materials due to their good electronic conductivity and high specific surface area that influences the properties of the catalyst, such as, charge transfer and improved dispersity of the catalyst particles. This leads to the increase in the utilization of the precious metal constituent. Ternary catalyst (Pt3Pd3Sn2) supported on different carbon materials with different surface area (Vulcan CX72, Multi Walled Carbon Nanotubes and Black Pearl 2000 carbon) have been studied for electro-oxidation of methanol, formic acid and methyl formate. The electrochemical result shows that the MWCNT supported PtPdSn catalyst exhibits higher electro-oxidation current of methanol, methyl formate and formic acid compared to PtPdSn/XC72 and PtPdSn/BP2000.

Su-Shia Lin is Professor at Department of Applied Materials and Optoelectronic Engineering, National Chi Nan University, Taiwan. She has some research experiences in materials science. Her research work mainly focuses on electrical and optical films, optical memory and optical data storage, nanometer materials and optical design.

TiO2 thin films have a variety of applications, including electro-chromic displays, dye-sensitized solar cells, gas sensors, antireflection films, planner wave guides and optical filters. It also has environmental applications, being extensively used in the photo degradation of organic and inorganic pollutants, photovoltaic energy production and the production of hydrogen by water photo splitting. TiO2 is currently the leading photocatalyst because it can mineralize a large range of organic pollutants. However, owing to its large band gap energy (typically <380 nm), TiO2 can only absorb ultraviolet light but not visible light, which constitutes a proportion of solar light. The overall quantum yield rate can be influenced by the low rate of electron transfer to dissolved oxygen and a high rate of recombination between electron-hole pairs. The preparation of TiO2 thin films has received great attention because of its remarkable optical, photocatalytic and electrical properties. TiO2 thin films have been prepared by several techniques. In general, sol–gel methods are more flexible and offer many advantages. In this study, TiO2 thin films were prepared by the sol–gel method using the spin–coating technique because, nanocrystalline materials have tremendous impact on various recent developments in industry and science. The annealing temperature plays an important role during the crystalline process. The influence of the aged sol and annealing temperature on the physical properties of TiO2 thin films were investigated in this study

Mahpara Habib is a student under Dr. Katherine Hornbostel’s supervision at the Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh. She is dedicated to developing materials that can harness energy from natural disasters and convert it into useful energy. At the present time, her work is focused on piezoelectric materials that can be utilized to capture energy from hurricane waves.

Global warming has triggered changes in the climate that have led to hurricanes becoming stronger and more frequent in recent years. In the past few decades, the frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has increased and this trend is predicted to continue into the future. Hydrokinetic conversion devices (HCDs), which harness energy from water flow, are an already established technology, with several prototypes deployed around the world. However, these devices have a rated working velocity of only 1.5-3.0 m/s, whereas in a category 5 hurricane, wave speeds of up to 28 m/s are possible, which would render HCDs useless and even may sweep them on shore. Therefore, a novel approach to hydrokinetic conversion that offers both a sturdy design and has rated velocities to match hurricane wave speeds is required. However, energy harvesting from hurricane waves is still relatively a nascent technology and needs to be developed further in order to be implemented commercially. This project’s objective is to explore the available technology options for harvesting energy from hurricane waves. If a suitable device can be designed, the enormous energy of storm waves crashing on to hurricane infested coastlines can be converted to electricity to be supplied to regions suffering from power outage as an aftermath of the hurricane. We have proposed two designs for achieving such ends. The first device uses a moving plate and bellows system attached with a hydro-power loop situated behind a seawall, which could be scaled up to become a stationary power generation system. The second design involves a composite seawall embedded with piezoelectric plates to produce electrical energy from the impact force of hurricane waves.