We’ll welcome Professor Paula E. Colavita from the School of Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), who will give a conference titled “Harnessing the properties of functional carbon materials for sustainable energy technologies” on Tuesday 8 July at 2 pm in Marie Curie room. This conference will be counted as equivalent training hours by the doctoral school for the PhD students.
Colavita Group works in the area of materials science and physical chemistry, focused on understanding and controlling interfacial reactions, in particular those that occur at surfaces of disordered materials (https://sites.google.com/site/colavitagroup/). Professor Colavita is laureate of the 2025 France Excellence Research Residency grant (https://ie.ambafrance.org/Results-2025-France-Excellence-Research-Residency-grant) for international researchers in Ireland who want to do a short mobility in France.
Abstract
Harnessing the properties of functional carbon materials for sustainable energy
technologies
Paula E. Colavita
School of Chemistry, Trinity College Dublin, College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland;
Electrochemical systems such as fuel cells, batteries and electrolysers will increase in importance and a significant expansion of their applications is expected as we progress in our efforts to transition to more sustainable energy solutions. However, many of these technologies rely at present on precious and scarce elements as electrocatalysts, which can pose limitations to their deployment at scale. Smart functional carbons and nanocarbons can play an important role in the development of novel electrodes/electrocatalysts to address this issue. Carbons/nanocarbons are highly versatile and their mechanical, electronic and chemical properties can span an impressive range. Importantly, effective
control over interfacial properties via bulk or surface modifications offers a powerful route to impart and control reactivity, that can potentially be leveraged for the design of electrocatalysts with decreased reliance on critical raw materials.
This presentation will first discuss progress in our group on the use of functional thin film carbon electrodes based on heteroatom modified scaffolds, to understand materials design principles for carbon-based electrocatalysts, with the aim of understanding and improving performance in key reactions for energy applications.The use of thin-film model electrodes with well-defined composition and N-site distribution for elucidating the role of N- functionalities in key cathodic (e.g. ORR) and anodic reactions (V(+5/+4)) [1-2] will be described. Then, the presentation will focus on how the properties of carbon thin films make them suitable as platform materials for electrochemistry at the nanoscale via scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM). SECCM at these carbon thin film electrodes can be used to elucidate structure-function relationships of carbon-based nanomaterials [3] as illustrated using two case studies of relevance to energy storage/conversion, namely correlative-SECCM work with N-doped graphene oxides and 2D MXenes [4-5]. Finally, progress on the design of metal@carbon heterostructured electrode materials with high surface area for applications in organosynthesis towards the electrochemical valorisation of compounds of biomass origin will be discussed [6].
- [1] Behan et al., Small 2019, 1902081.
- [2] Costa de Oliveira et al., Electrochim. Acta 2024, 475, 143640.
- [3] Brunet Cabré et al. Small Methods 2025, 9 (1), 2400639.
- [4] Brunet Cabré et al., Nat. Comm., 2023, 14, 374.
- [5] Costa de Oliveira et al., Small 2025, 21 (3), 2405220.
- [6] Pota et al., J. Mater. Chem. A 2025, 13, 12383.