Research at Lab of Interfacial Electrochemistry for Sensing & Storage

Rosy's Lab of Int.Elect'S is focused to use electrochemistry as a tool to explore the following fields:

1) Development of Voltammetric Sensors

The analysis of neurotransmitters and drugs is of great significance for clinical diagnosis as well as other aspects of medical science, as both possess the potential to crucially affect the healthy living of mankind. Any alteration in the concentration of such molecules can be taken as an indicator of disturbed body systems leading to many acute and chronic pathological conditions. Hence, we focus on developing highly sensitive, quick, and reliable sensors capable of selectively determining the metallic impurities, pesticides, fertilizers, neurotransmitters, and drugs of interest using voltammetric methods.

The goal of this research project is to tune the sensitivity and selectivity of conventional substrates like glassy carbon, edge plane pyrolytic graphite, etc., utilizing a variety of fabrication methods, including electro-polymerization, electrodeposition and electrochemical reduction of various functionalized nanomaterials to impart memory, affinity and higher electroactive surface area to these substrates which later can be used to develop highly sensitive, and, selective, surface-modified voltammetric sensors.

Links to relevant papers related to the aforementioned research problem
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925400516305792
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2015/ra/c5ra11131e
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092540051631989X

2) Extending Battery Life by Engineering the Interfaces

Lithium-ion batteries are one of the most important inventions of modern chemistry, which have successfully made the world mobile.
Deeply penetrated into human life, it won't be wrong to say that the life and efficiency of LIBs control the output of a normal human being at work.

Therefore, it is very important to investigate two main issues related to batteries:
(1) Why do batteries fail or perform with less efficiency?
(2) What can we do to improve the battery performance?

It is now widely accepted that battery durability and cycle life depend on the complex interfacial interactions between the electrodes and the electrolyte solution. Consequently, by interfacial engineering of rationally designed electrodes, the interfacial chemistry of highly reactive surfaces such as LCO, NCM 811, Li, and Mn-rich NCM (LMR-NCM), air cathodes can be moderated to significantly improve the battery performance.

Therefore, this research approach aims to stabilize the interface by designing a protection layer known as an “artificial solid electrolyte interface (ASEI)” using deposition techniques, surface treatment methods, and salts variations to mitigate the material degradation to a significant extent. An artificial protection layer on the electrode materials can prevent their degradation 1) by stabilizing the functional interface and addressing the deleterious reactions between electrode and electrolyte and 2) by inhibiting transition metal ion dissolution and structural deformation. Such strategies address all the critical challenges associated with the complex electrode material and thus provide a promising research direction for choosing the relevant methodology for surface protection.

Links to a few relevant papers related to this research problem:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405829720303251
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.chemmater.9b00875
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-018-0114-3?platform=hootsuite

Financial Support/ Funded Projects

Funding Agency	Domain	Duration	Status
IIT(BHU) Seed Grant	Electrochemical Sensors	Aug 21- April 2022	Completed
DST-SERB SRG	Li-ion Batteries	Dec 2021- Dec 2023	Ongoing