RESEARCH

Developing innovative ionogel-based materials to capture and convert CO2 into valuable products through electrocarboxylation processes. The focus is on developing smart, reusable materials that can be regenerated using electroactive polymer ionogels instead of energy-intensive thermal processes.

Creating plasmochromic materials for energy-efficient windows that dynamically adjust sunlight transmission to reduce energy consumption in buildings. The group is also developing organic electrochromic systems for smart sensors and wearable biosensors that can monitor health parameters such as glucose and lactate in real time.

Using photocatalysis to produce hydrogen from treated wastewater, integrating Z-scheme composite photocatalysts and metal-based modifications to improve efficiency. The research also includes Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impact and economic feasibility.

Advancing solid-state battery technology using additive manufacturing (3D printing) to improve safety, energy density, and charging speed for electric vehicle (EV) applications. The goal is to develop anode-free solid-state batteries with high performance prototypes tested under real conditions.

Implementing microbial fuel cells (MFCs) to treat wastewater while generating energy, as well as microbial electrosynthesis (MES) and microbial electrolysis cells (MECs) to produce valuable bio-based products such as hydrogen and hydrocarbons from waste sources.

Special attention will be paid to support women’s education in science, as potential energy and water sector professionals, since a considerable part of the project staff is made up of young researchers, most of them women. It must be noted that, though we aim to apply equal gender representation at all levels in the group. More specifically, it is important to note that the recruitment of this researcher as well as the management of the rest of the activities of the project will be guided by the principles of gender equality.

Therefore, equal opportunities will be given to the male and female candidates to this position. In fact, our group has a longstanding commitment with gender balance, as 56% of the PhD students graduated since 2012 and 66% of the current PhD students and 70% of master and undergraduate students formed in our group are females, which ranks above the averages in STEM science. In the any case, for the recruitment of new R&D personal within the group, special care will be taken to potentiate the choice of women and to, at least, ensure gender parity.

Scientific publications and presentations in conferences will be the main dissemination channels of our research to the scientific community. Owing to the potential impact and multidisciplinary nature of the project, we expect the results obtained to be publishable in scientific journalswith high impact factor in a diversity of areas (e.g. Multidisciplinary Science, Multidisciplinary Chemistry, Multidisciplinary Materials Science, Green & Sustainable Science & Technology). Though publication in open source journals will only be considered in selected cases, all the articles will be uploaded to the UAB open document server.

In addition, oral and poster presentations will be given in conferences covering some of the topics related to the project (e.g. (inter)national meetings on green and sustainable chemistry, photochemistry, electrochemistry, sensors, and polymer science).

The Electro-Green-Chem group, as a UAB group, subscribes the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of ALLEA (All European Academies), and the Code of Good Practice in Research (CBPR) approved by its Governing Council on 30 September 2020. The CBPR sets out the guiding principles of good scientific practice. Good practice in research implies a reasoned approach to work. We use the CBPR as a self-regulation instruments for planning and conducting the research, recording and reporting the experiments, and disseminating and exploiting the obtained results.

Finally, we strongly believe in the principles of free access to scientific information and good practice in scientific publishing of the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), dealing with the criteria of intellectual authorship, prevention of plagiarism, self-plagiarism and redundancy in scientific publications.

The Electro-Green-Chem Group is currently using, and will use in the future, some of tools developed at the UAB to ensure that we will disseminate our research activities among society so they can be understood by non-specialists, thereby improving understanding and social awareness and generating a critical view on scientific knowledge.

Some of the group members are involved in the Argó Program of the Institute for Education Science (ICE) at the UAB, which provides training activities to baccalaureate and professional training teachers in order to update their knowledge. Teachers also have the opportunity to visit research centers and know research projects developed at UAB.

Moreover, the are active members in the program “ Visites als centres de secundària i ajuntaments – La UAB s’apropa a tu! (The UAB is approaching you!).