Szymon has joined the Nanostructured Hybrid Energy Materials group in October 2017 under the supervision of Dr Ana Jorge Sobrido. He has completed his BEng in Material Science and Engineering at Queen Mary University followed by an MSc in Polymer Material Science and Engineering at University of Manchester before joining the group. His research centres around development of a bifunctional electrocatalyst for OER and ORR using a doped carbon/transition metal oxide perovskite hybrid material.
Oxygen electrocatalysis reactions are essential for functioning of devices such as: fuel cells, with their performance limited by the reaction rate of oxygen reduction reaction occurring at the cathode, water electrolysers where the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction at the anode hinder their efficiency and metal-air batteries where both reactions are necessary for their reversibility. To date these devices rely on expensive noble metal electrocatalysts, Platinum for the cathode and Iridium or Ruthenium for the anode, impeding their commercial competitiveness. During this project, an electrocatalyst that is inexpensive, stable and rivaling in performance with noble metals catalysts will be developed, paving the way for wide scale commercial implementation of those devices. Szymon was awarded his PhD in 2023.