University of BelgradeThe 18th episode of the 6th season of the show "Science to industry", that is aired on Radio Television Vojvodina, covered project GRAMULSEN that is led by dr. Marko Spasenović from our Department of Microelectronic Technologies. The project is funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia through the PROMIS program. The episode can be watched online on the YouTube channel of the show.
Within the program "Innovation Vouchers", of the Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia, the project "Development and validation of analytical methods for determining the content of PAH in medicinal and spice plants" was approved for funding. The participants of the project on behalf of ICTM are dr. Milica Sentić (project leader) and Ivana Trajković, from the Department of Ecology and TechnoEconomics.
The news portal of the European consortium Graphene Flagship published an interview with our colleague dr Marko Spasenović. In the „Spotlight“ section of the website, our colleague spoke about the development of graphene gas sensors and microphones in our Center for Microelectronic Technologies.
The Graphene Flagship is a project that the European Commission (EC) is funding with a billion euros over a period of ten years. The project was, together with the Human Brain Project, the first that the EC launched in 2013 as part of the FET Flagships program, with the aim to address big scientific and technological challenges of today through long-term multidisciplinary research and development. The consortium consists of over 150 academic and industrial partners in 23 countries. ICTM has been an Associated Member since 2018.
In cooperation with the group of Dr. Vojislav Stamenković, from the "Argonne National Laboratory - Material Science Division," our colleague Dr. Dušan Tripković published the paper "Eliminating Dissolution of Pt-based Electrocatalysts at the Atomic Scale" in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Materials (Nature Materials, 2020, 19, 1207-1214, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0735-3, IF2019=38.663).
Solving the problem of stability of catalysts used in fuel cells is a long-standing challenge for many researchers in this field. The paper presents a new approach in solving the stability problem of Pt catalysts, i.e., how to prevent the dissolution of Pt at the atomic level leading to a decrease in catalyst activity. The problem is approached from two sides: protection of Pt catalysts by using thin gold films, which protects low-coordinated active sites on the platinum surface and second, deposition of platinum on the already existing gold film that leads to a significant increase in the ratio of 111 plane, which is the most stable orientation in the oxygen reduction reaction. As this reaction represents the largest energy loss in fuel cells, it is also the main obstacle to the full commercialization of this technology. Using both methods, a 3 nm Pt3Au / C catalyst was obtained in which platinum dissolution was almost eliminated, and thus the obtained catalyst was 30 times more stable compared to the commercial 3 nm Pt / C catalyst.
The paper can be read on the publisher's website. The article is also available in the ICTM's institutional repository (published version and peer-reviewed version).
Congratulations to our colleagues, and we wish them much success in their further research!