Andrew Dixon

Interdisciplinary MSc/PhD in the Doctoral Training Centre for Low Carbon Technologies

Project Title: Alternative catalysts for use within PEM fuel cells

Background

My undergraduate/master’s degree is in Chemistry, specifically analytical chemistry. I spent my four years at Manchester Metro with the final two focussed on the investigation of cocaine contamination on UK banknotes. The transition to PhD was a logical one, I felt like I hadn’t finished learning all I wanted and had found a yearning to apply my Chemistry degree to something worthwhile.

Research Interests

Computational chemistry has evolved beyond a supplementary technique into a useful tool allowing for detailed investigations of reactions beyond the capabilities of lab based experimentation. Using these techniques it is possible to gain insight into the origin of the overpotential present on platinum – currently the most popular catalyst for the PEM fuel cell. This overpotential represents one of the biggest obstacles to fuel cell commercialisation, discovering its source allows for alternative, more efficient catalysts to be developed.

Future Work

I am currently in my final year of study, thus far my work has focussed on method development and the platinum catalyst but the final 9 months of research will be focussing on platinum alloys and non-precious metal catalysts.