Ahmad Zhafran

Ahmad Zhafran is a Research Associate with the Particles and Catalysis (PartCat) Research Group at UNSW, specialising in plasma CO2 conversion. His research centres on optimising plasma-catalyst synergy and developing complementary energy input strategies to enhance reaction efficiency. He designs hybrid reactor systems to systematically study plasma-light interactions and their influence on catalytic behaviour.

A new focus of his work is the plasma pretreatment of materials to engineer surface chemistry and defect structures that improve catalytic performance. Building on this, he is expanding into photothermal catalysis using plasma-treated carbon materials, investigating how light-driven heating and surface activation can be integrated to further enhance CO2 reduction pathways.