In autumn 2022, WISE carried out its first call for doctoral student and postdoc projects. On this page, you can read more about KTH's granted projects.
Doctoral student projects
In this project we focus on developing disposable biosensors using sustainable materials and device designs. Most disposable technologies developed to date, including biosensors, integrate components that are difficult to separate and recycle (i.e., plastic and precious metals). Moreover, conventional electronic materials and their fabrication can be costly, making the products too expensive for low-cost applications, such as food monitoring. Here we address these issues by providing a new generation of biosensors based on inexpensive starting materials, components that are environmentally friendly upon disposal, and fabrication methods that are affordable and low-energy consumption. Our demonstrator for this class of biosensors is the monitoring of food spoilage especially monitoring of meat and food freshness as animal derived products have the largest environmental footprint per weight of all food types. In this application, the devices need to be cheap, provide stable operation during use, and safe disposal after service life. Such sensors are set to provide a solution to alert consumers and producers about spoiled food and reduce waste.
To increase the transmission efficiency of electrical power in high voltage direct current (HVDC) cables, it has been proposed to move towards a 1-megavolt system. This, in turn, imposes greater demands on the insulation material of the high-voltage cables. It has been verified that adding certain nanoparticles improves the dielectric properties by several different and independently contributing factors regarding the crystal formation, boundary regions, surface compatibility, cavitation volumes, moisture content, and/or polar chemicals from processing.
Therefore, this project will focus on improving the insulation materials by investigating the dielectric performance of nanocomposites with abundant green carbon additives such as ultrafine carbon nanoparticles. The goal is to first study the extent of the dielectric performance improvement and establish its reproducibility and dependence on nanoparticle characteristics such as distribution, dispersity, and morphology. Secondly, using antioxidant additives such as green radical scavenging molecules and space charge accumulators will be investigated to further enhance the dielectric properties of the formed nanocomposites.
This project addresses a special type of quality-reducing impurities often found in Electroslag Remelted (ESR) tool steels; MgO-Al2O3 spinel inclusions. Both origin and measures to minimise their existence will be investigated by a combination of industrial trials, small-scale experiments, and modelling. With the end-goal to deliver an as clean tool steel as possible, in terms of MgO-Al2O3 spinels, resulting in improved final properties.
Cemented carbides are among the most important materials within metal cutting and mining equipment. They have exhibited excellent performance when their hard phase, tungsten carbide, is bound by cobalt (Co). However, the carcinogenicity of Co powder and its availability mainly in conflict zones, have created a driving force for its substitution with a less harmful alternative. Advanced high-strength steel, with improved strength and ductility, through a transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) effect, may present a suitable binder alternative to not only substitute Co but also pave the path for a completely new group of composites for applications not yet foreseen. In this project, thermodynamic and kinetic-based models, Ab initio calculations, and finite element analysis are used to explore different processing conditions and sets of compositions.
The principal scientific problem hindering a realization of an energy system based on sustainable chemistry is found in the control of interfacial catalysis. However, a predictive capacity in heterogeneous catalysis is still, even after intensive efforts, lacking. In order to realize synthesis of much needed new categories of highly efficient catalysts we must first establish an understanding of the relationships between the atomic structure of the active sites and the catalytic properties under relevant reaction conditions. This project addresses this problem.
Structure-function relationships of catalysts can be established from preparation, often through physical vapor deposition (PVD). However, PVD deposition of metals on single crystals often leads to a broad size distribution that may include single atoms, clusters, and even nanoparticles. The purpose of this project is to synthesize novel single-atom model catalysts, at high metal coverages, on uniform and well-defined supports using a deposition technique derived from atomic layer deposition (ALD). The synthesis of these model catalysts will allow determination of the atomic structure and study the dynamic behavior of the catalytic active sites under relevant reaction conditions. From the results we will be able to extract atomic structure – catalytic function relationships that can be used describe the reaction mechanism. By using in-situ characterization techniques we can identify the true nature of the catalytic active sites under reaction conditions, identify reaction intermediates and determine the activity and selectivity of the model catalysts.
Data processing and computations are based on a realization of information-carriers: bits. The realization of bits is based on the nature of excitations in a material. For example, magnetic excitation or ferroelectric excitations for magnetic or ferroelectric memory. Data processing in semiconductors is based on the control and manipulation of electric charges. We will investigate the new kinds of excitations, which discovery was reported in SCIENCE 3 Vol 380, Issue 6651 pp. 1244-1247 (2023) : fractional vortices that can be used to process and store information. We will explore if these excitations could be controlled and manipulated at dramatically lower energy costs.
Modern society relies on readily available refrigeration. Despite the wide efforts for adopting ozone- and climate-safe refrigeration, today the most common techniques still use harmful greenhouse gases with high global warming potential. This project aims to develop materials for highly efficient and environmentally friendly magnetic coolants used in modern magnetic refrigeration. The research team will design high-performance magnetocaloric materials by employing the Multi-Principal-Element-Alloy strategy. The new materials will be free of critical raw materials, be cheap and abundant, and exhibit large magnetocaloric effect under a field produced by permanent magnets. The goal will be reached by integrating first-principles quantum mechanical modelling with experimental verification.
By the year 2030, computers will consume more energy than all cars, aeroplanes, and ships put together according to conservative estimates. In order to address this bottleneck, this project aims to develop 2D materials, and their integration technologies to demonstrate novel electrochemical transistors based on 2D materials, specifically 2D electrochemical random-access memory (ECRAM). This will enable the next generation of revolutionary in-memory computers, with potential for computation that is up to a thousand times more energy efficient compared to the state-of-the-art.
To achieve this, this project will address interlinked research challenges in 2D material and heterostructure development, 2D material transistor fabrication, and 2D material integration. We will develop novel methods to process 2D iontronic thin film materials to pattern three-terminal electrochemical transistors. Furthermore, we will realize hybrid and interconnected system architectures by integrating our 2D electrochemical transistors on top of metal interconnect stacks on silicon wafers.
Electrocatalytic reactions are critical for the energy conversion processes that occur inside energy storage technologies and therefore play an important role in sustainable energy systems and environmental remediation.
This project aims to design and fabricate scalable anisotropic Cu aerogel electrocatalyst by biomaterial templating where biomaterial structure is used and tailored. Anisotropic metallic aerogel is a gel-type of solid material in which its liquid component has been removed. The material is promising because it combines the unique properties of metal with the structural advantages of aerogels, where structural anisotropy provides fast mass transportation. Copper is a particularly attractive material due to its large reserves, high activity, and accessible redox states. Current fabrication is limited by the technologies to build up large anisotropic aerogel structures. The results from this project will contribute to sustainable energy research.
Supercapacitor performance is limited both by the amount of charge that can be stored on the electrodes, and the rate that the device can discharge. Ionic liquids (ILs) are salts that are nonetheless liquid, and they have been suggested as solvent media for capacitors but their viscosity limits power. IL self assembly at charged interfaces can take several forms, and we can now design ILs with a view to controlling this interfacial behavior. The project embraces a hybrid approach where a next-level projection of recent advances in our understanding of the interfacial self-assembly of ILs and their mixtures will allow the capacitance to be dramatically enhanced, as a means of significantly increasing the specific energy of devices, while maintaining acceptable resistance.
Water pollution is a global problem of the highest concern. This project addresses the immediate need for efficient water treatment materials, bio-based materials, and chemicals as well as the need to utilize biomass more efficiently.
The project aims to combine polymer chemistry, mesoporous structuring, and nanotechnology. Algal polysaccharides will be chemically modified and hierarchically structured into affinity materials that can reversibly adsorb pollutants for use in water remediation.
Biopolymers are recovered from seaweed. The project will explore chemical modification and templating to build multi-scale pores with embedded nanostructures. Morphology and adsorption mechanisms, selectivity, kinetics, efficiency, and regeneration capacity will be studied in detail.
It is estimated from the IEA World-energy outlook report 2019 that up to 99.7 percent of CO2 emissions from existing coal-fired power plants can be reduced. The technology for CO2 capture exists, but commercial technology has low reaction efficiency and requires significant energy for operation.
This project aims to explore so-called Liquid-Infused Materials (LIMs) for CO2 capture. These materials consist of a periodic solid scaffold with tens of thousands of perfectly controlled liquid droplets. This experimental project will develop different LIMs and analyse transport and reaction processes between a gas flow and immobilized liquid droplets.
The concrete outcome of this project will be to benchmark the carbon-capture capacity of LIMs with existing techniques. It can advance material science for carbon capture specifically and for flow-continuous heterogeneous catalysis in general.
Although 3D printing technologies for metals, plastics, ceramics, and even bio-materials are commercially available today, the capability to 3D print glass, considered the last frontier in additive manufacturing, remain limited. Initiated through an SSF funded project, Nobula successfully developed the Direct Glass Laser Deposition (DGLDTM) technique, providing a novel laser-based glass 3D printer that utilizes thin glass filaments as feedstock. Through direct laser heating using CO2-lasers, processing temperatures above 2000 °C are easily achieved, enabling printing of fused silica glass. Filaments of fused silica are easily manufactured using commercial optical fiber draw towers. However, fabricating filaments of other types of glass, e.g., borosilicate or soda-lime glass, has been a challenge.
The motivation of this project is to study the filament fabrication process for different types of glass suitable for 3D printing, both regarding material composition and structures. The vision is to expand the potential applications of glass 3D printing, with a focus on sustainability. To facilitate this study, the laser-based fiber draw tower developed at KTH will be used for material studies regarding filament fabrication, which will subsequently be evaluated using the glass 3D printers at Nobula.
Anion-exchange-membrane (AEM) water electrolyzers are a relatively recent electrolyzer technology for clean hydrogen production. Use of AEMs allows for less expensive catalysts, such as NiFe, compared to the more mature proton-exchange membrane water electrolyzers, which generally require precious-group-metal catalysts. However, AEM water electrolyzers only demonstrate acceptable performance when fed electrolyte solution instead of pure water, which is undesirable for a number of reasons. This project will explore the fundamental reasons behind the performance gain from an electrolyte feed and how this requirement can be mitigated.
This page lists ongoing WISE projects that are led by a KTH researcher. A list of all granted projects, including projects at other universities, can be found at
wise-materials.org
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