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Engineering porous materials for sustainable energy applications

Abstract

Nanoporous materials (materials with inner porosity on the scale of nanometres) such as porous carbon nanomaterials, zeolites and metal-organic frameworks are exceptionally suited for applications in gas separation and storage. Their nanoscale structures can be tuned to promote extremely high densities of gas within their pores, which can lead to exciting possibilities for physical adsorption of low-carbon, alternative fuel gases such as hydrogen. Their high surface areas mean that they can support selective and rapid catalytic reactions, and their narrow pores can also act as molecular sieves for exceedingly discriminative gas separations.

In each of these areas, understanding the key structure-properties relationships at play means that we can design materials that are better suited to practical use. This talk will present an overview of various projects utilising porous materials for applications in the generation and storage of sustainable energies and in environmental remediation, demonstrating how careful tailoring of the micro-and macroscale structures of different nanoporous materials can lead to improved materials properties for a wide range of potential applications.

Bio

Professor Valeska Ting (CEng, FIOM3, MRSC) is a materials scientist and an engineer, working in the field of sustainable technologies. She completed her PhD in Chemistry at ANU in 2007, before moving to the UK to take up a postdoctoral research position at the University of Southampton and a Research Fellowship at the University of Bath in Chemical Engineering. Following a period as a lecturer, during which she became a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she joined the University of Bristol in 2016, where she was awarded a highly competitive research fellowship from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and was promoted to Professor of Smart Nanomaterials in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2019.

Valeska heads a team of researchers working on the design, characterisation and testing of materials for sustainable energy applications. Her research has been recognised by the award of the 2013 Institution of Chemical Engineers’ Sir Frederick Warner medal, as well as the UK's Parliamentary and Scientific Committee's SET for Britain Gold Medal for Engineering and the Westminster Medal in 2013. In 2020 she was named in the Top 50 Women in Engineering working in sustainability.