Abstract:

Climate change and rapid increase in the demand for energy has stimulated great interest for efficient, clean and low-cost energy conversion and storage systems. With this motivation, batteries, fuel cells and electrolysers have been broadly investigated and they are considered an onset to decarbonization. In this context, metal-air batteries, regenerative solid oxide fuel cell, water electrolysers and some of the fuel cells operate based on the oxygen evolution, reduction and hydrogen evolution reactions. In addition to that, in some devices such metal-air batteries, it is required to accelerate some of the reactions together. To that end, being able to manage the physicochemical properties of materials for the reactions we would like to boost plays a pivotal role in the developing robust energy storage and conversion devices.

I will present our mechanistic studies on the (i) electrochemical properties of high entropy oxides for Li-ion batteries (ii) electronic structure modulation of p-type oxide for OER (ii) perovskite oxides for water electrolysis and metal-air batteries. Our studies involve in situ and operando characterization of materials during electrochemistry, electrochemical measurements, operando optical spectroscopy, operando atomic force microscopy, density functional theory and x- ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In combination of different techniques and approaches, we draw a holistic design strategy for robust materials design on a way to carbon-free energy storage and conversion.

Short Biography of the Speaker:

Dr. Toparli received her Bachelors of Science degree in Metallurgical and Material Science Engineering in 2011 from Istanbul Technical University. She pursued her PhD studies under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Andreas Erbe at Max Planck Institute for Iron Research in Germany. Her thesis focused on in situ and operando observation of passive film formation on Cu and its breakdown through oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Having been awarded her PhD degree in July 2017, she continued her work in the Interface Spectroscopy group at Max Planck Institute for Iron Research as a postdoctoral researcher for several months. She joined Prof. Dr. Bilge Yildiz’s and Prof. Dr. Michael Shorts’ group at MIT as a postdoctoral associate in January 2018. Since October 2020, she has been appointed as Assistant Professor in the department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Middle East Technical University. Her current research focusses on the designing oxide materials for electrochemical energy applications.