Constantine Tsounis

Academic Qualifications

2015 – 2018: Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical)(Hon I), UNSW Sydney
2019 – Present: PhD Scholar, School of Chemical Engineering, UNSW Sydney

Selected Awards and Achievements

• Fulbright Scholarship (2021)
• Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship (Research Fellowship) (2021)
• Elected UNSW Council Member (2020-2022)
• 1st Place Peter Farrell Cup and Startmate Accelerator Program (2019-2020)
• Scientia PhD Scholarship (2019)

Project

Hydrogen, produced renewably via electrolysis in the Power-to-X process, is a key component of industrial decarbonization due to its versatility as a molecular fuel or chemical feedstock. At the core of renewable hydrogen production, electrocatalysts are used to increase the energy efficiency of the water splitting process. Carbon-based materials such as graphene have emerged as a promising support for electrocatalysts in water splitting, due to its earth-abundance, conductivity, and high surface area. Specifically, graphene edges exhibit a highly localized density of states which result in increased reactivity compared to its basal plane. However, exploiting this property to anchor and tune the valence states of metal catalysts remains elusive. This project aims to investigate how the graphene edges in edge-rich vertically aligned graphene can improve the performance of metal catalysts for water splitting, supporting the global clean energy transition.

Supervisors

Professor Rose Amal (UNSW); Professor Christoph Müller (ETH Zürich); Professor Liming Dai (UNSW); and Dr. Zhaojun Han (UNSW, CSIRO)

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