Group of Applied Catalysis

 Welcome to the group of Applied Catalysis. Our group, headed by Professor Ian Metcalfe joined Newcastle University in 2005 and over the years it has grown and now numbers three post-doctoral research associates and eleven PhD students with varying research interests.  Our research is in the areas of high temperature membrane reactors, H2 production, heterogeneous catalysis and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs).

We love membranes!  Thus, much of the work carried out in our group focuses on membranes for both gas separation and water splitting purposes, at high temperatures.  Perovskite materials are another of our favourites.  We use these in our membranes and in chemical looping processes to produce hydrogen.  Hydrogen is the Holy Grail for many of us.  We produce it, store it, use it, love it and loathe it!  Water splitting is our chosen method of H2 production and thus we are also interested in how oxygen interacts with our materials, so we also carry out work with isotopically labelled oxygen to track its path during experiments.  We also like our catalysts to work better and faster, so we look into the role of promoters on the catalytic activity of Pt (and other precious metals). 

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 If you wish to know more about the specific interests of the group, click here. If you’d like to join our group click here to see our current vacancies.

News

25/04/2013 - Naimah's paper entitled 'The role of sodium surface species on electrochemical promotion of catalysis in a Pt/YSZ system:The case of ethylene oxidation' has been published in Journal of Catalysis. You can find it here.

01/04/2013 - We would like to welcome Dr Anne Huber who joined the group to work as PDRA.

28/02/2013 - We wish the best to Alan Thursfield who left the group after so many years of good work.

30/11/2012 - Danai Poulidi has left our group to start a new job as lecturer at Queen's University Belfast. We wish you good luck in your future career. We will miss you!

23/11/2012 - Claire´s poster "Auto-thermal Hydrogen Production via Chemical Looping of Iron Oxide" won the first prize at the Energy Excellence Research Poster competition within the workshop "UK Energy Strategy: Showcasing capability of the North East to deliver". Good work!

01/10/2012 - Dr Vangelis Papaioannou joined the group as a PDRA to work on Electrochemical Promotion of Catalysis.

01/08/2012 - We welcome Dr Ana Cristina Dueso who joins the group as a PDRA to work on Chemical Looping for hydrogen production.

19/07/2012 - Congratulations to Ian Metcalfe for becoming a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering! This is in recognition of his contribution in the fields of catalysis and membrane science over the past 25 years.

02/07/2012 - Mas' first paper is published in Solid State Ionics. The title is: "Influence of impurities and catalyst surface characteristics on the oxygen charge transfer reaction in the Pt/YSZ system". You can find it here.

17/05/2012 - Naimah publishes two papers in Electrochimica Acta and Solid State Ionics on the role of Na surface modification in the electrochemical and electrocatalytic behaviour of the Pt/YSZ system. Well done Naimah! - Check them out here and here.

15/05/2012 - Check out our paper on the "Effects of Separation Layer Thickness on Oxygen Permeation and Mechanical Strength of DL-HFMR-ScSZ" in the Journal of Membrane Science. This was a collaborative work between our group and the group of Prof Kang Li at Imperial College.

Upcoming Events

 

Here is a list of upcoming conferences, workshops and training courses that you will find some of us at. Please look for us if you’d like a chat, we are very friendly people!

    • 19th International Conference on Solid State Ionics (SSI 19), 2-7 June 2013, Kyoto, Japan, For more information click here.
    • 11th International Conference on Catalysis in Membrane Reactors (ICCMR 11), 7-11 July 2013, Porto, Portugal. For more information click here.
    • 5th High Temperature Solid Looping Network Meeting, 2-3 September 2013, Cambridge, UK.
    • International Workshop on Ionically Conducting Ceramics for Catalysis (IC3), 6-8 September 2013, Lyon, France. For more information click here.