Posterprize for HZB postdoc Prince Saurabh Bassi

Dr. Prince Saurabh Bassi was awarded the poster prize at “International Bunsen-Discussion-Meeting on Fundamentals and Applications of (Photo) Electrolysis for Efficient Energy Storage”. He is a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. Sebastian Fiechter in the Institute for Solar Fuels.

The poster was titled: “Survey and Synthesis of Photoactive Phases in the Quaternary System Fe-Ti-W-O Supported by Combinatorial Screening Experiments”. It was chosen from 53 posters presented during two poster sessions of the conference with 150 participants. The meeting was held in Taormina, Italy from 1st to 5th April 2019. The prize was sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry (Journal of Materials Chemistry A, B and C and Materials Horizons). A book voucher was also gifted to him by the society.

In the poster, Bassi presented latest results on the survey and synthesis of new phases in the quaternary Fe-Ti-W-O system for application as photoelectrocatalyst in light-assisted water splitting. The inability to find systems possessing favorable characteristics like optimum band gap for efficient solar light absorption and electrochemical, aqueous and thermodynamic stability, have led the scientific community to explore com­plex ternary and quaternary oxide systems. Since they encompass complimentary properties of their constituent binary oxides, their properties can be tuned by varying their stoichiometry.

He fabricated thin film photoelectrodes of the hit composition Fe₄₈Ti₃₀W₂₂O_x, obtained from the combi­natorial screening, using a simple spin coating route. The structural analysis revealed that - after temperature annealing – a new quaternary oxide appeared crystallizing in a distorted Ferberite structure together with the ternary phases Fe₂TiO₅ and Fe_1.7Ti_0.23O₃. His work proves to be a bridge between combinatorial studies and thin film fabrication and characterization of photoactive hit region compositions.