Staff
- Academic Staff
- Dr M.N. Ahmad
- Dr F. Aiouache
- Professor S.J. Allen
- Professor S.E.J. Bell
- Professor D.R. Boyd
- Professor R. Burch OBE
- Dr M.J. Cook
- Professor A.P. de Silva
- Dr A.P. Doherty
- Dr N.C. Fletcher
- Dr Q. Gan
- Dr A. Goguet
- Dr W. P.D.Goldring
- Professor K.J. Hale
- Professor C. Hardacre
- Professor P. Hu
- Dr M. Huang
- Dr. J. Jacquemin
- Professor S.L. James
- Dr M.C. Lagunas
- Dr I.C. Lane
- Dr W.F. Lin
- Professor T.R.A. Magee
- Professor J. Mann
- Dr A.C. Marr
- Dr P.C. Marr
- Professor J.J. McGarvey
- Professor A. Mills
- Dr M. Mirzaeian
- Dr M.J. Muldoon
- Dr P. Nancarrow
- Dr P. Nockemann
- Professor E.V. Rebrov
- Dr D.W. Rooney
- Professor K.R. Seddon
- Dr G.N. Sheldrake
- Dr P.J. Stevenson
- Dr K. Tchabanenko
- Dr J. Thompson
- Dr J.S. Vyle
- Dr G.M. Walker
- Dr P.J. Walsh
- All Staff
Dr Mojtaba Mirzaeian
Dr M. Mirzaeian
BSc,
MSc and
PhD in Chemical Engineering
Lecturer in Chemical Engineering
Tel: + 44 (0) 28 9097 4474
Fax: + 44 (0) 28 9097 6524
E-mail: m.mirzaeian@qub.ac.uk
Research Keywords
Polymeric gels and carbon materials
Electrochemical energy storage (Batteries and Supercapacitors)
Ionic liquid electrolytes
Coal/CO2 interactions and CO2 storage
Research
Control of porosity in carbon materials
The recent development of industrial technology provides new applications for porous carbons in the fields of adsorption, gas storage, separation and purification, catalyst supports, electrodes for lithium batteries and electric double layer supercapacitors, etc. For many advanced applications such as electrodes materials for batteries and supercapacitors the control of porosity at nano-level is very essential.
The morphology of the polymeric gel precursors can be modified as a function of different synthesis parameters. This characteristic allows the tailoring of the internal structure of carbons driven from these porous materials on a nanometer scale, and makes them particularly well suited for a variety of applications. Our major activity in recent years has been research to understand and control porosity in polymeric gels and carbon materials to produce functional materials for a wide variety of applications. The outcome is the ability to produce controlled nanoporous gels and carbons and to be able to control the mean pore size and pore volume of these materials commensurate with each application. The results are published in Journals of Materials Science [PDF] and Sol-gel Science Technology [PDF].
Electrochemical energy storage in batteries and supercapacitors
One of the applications of our work on carbon materials is in producing new highly conductive nanoporous carbons for Li/O2 battery and supercapacitor electrodes. These technologies will play increasing important role in our future energy demands, especially in automotive and grid applications.
The application for Li-ion batteries probably represents the greatest materials challenge for porous carbons since the performance of the battery is strongly affected by the porosity of carbon used in the cathode. Our article in the Journal of Electrochemical Acta addresses this issue [PDF] and our work published in the Journal of Power Sources is the first Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy study of the deactivation of Li-air batteries during charge/discharge [PDF].
Energy storage technologies based on ionic liquids electrolyte are being developed because of their enhanced operating voltage characteristics and therefore, increased energy density [PDF]. Compared to organic electrolytes, ionic liquid based electrolytes have relatively high viscosities and consequently lower ionic conductivities. Therefore identification of ionic liquids that simultaneously have the properties of low viscosity, high ionic conductivity, air stability while at the same time offer a high electrochemical voltage window for supercapacitor and battery applications is a key step in the development of the ionic liquid based energy storage devices.
My major current activity focuses on the effect the electrode's structure on the performance of Li/O2 batteries under different operation conditions and also studying the performance and rate capability of ionic liquid based Li/O2 batteries.
CO2 sequestration in coal
Unminable coal seams are considered as one of the best options for disposal of CO2 with the benefit of enhanced methane recovery and within the past decade there has been renewed interest in CO2 sequestration into unminable deep coal seams. My basic research in this field focuses on Coal/CO2 interactions, particularly phase changes in the macromolecular structure of coal induced by high pressure CO2. Our study on the high pressure interactions of coal with CO2 by a variety of experimental techniques used in polymer and adsorption/desorption studies to identify mechanisms by which CO2 diffuses through coal and how difficult coals release adsorbed CO2 and also our study on the thermodynamics of coal/CO2 interactions are published in the Journals of Energy& Fuels [PDF] and Iranian Journal of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering [PDF].
Our SANS study of structural changes induced in coal by high pressure CO2 was the first study to determine the scale of change in the coal structure under CO2 at different pressures and show how and where CO2 is stored within the coal structure. Some part of this work is published in the Journal of Materials Science and this research is on-going [PDF].
