March 19, 2024

Dimitra Papamichail – ESR 8

Dimitra Papamichail was born in Orestiada (Greece) in 1996. She studied Chemistry at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2014-2018). During this period, she studied basic electrochemistry and physical chemistry. After finishing her degree, she continued with master studies, at the same university, in Electrochemical Systems Science and Technology (2018-2021) obtaining a one–year scholarship.  She worked on the monitoring / understanding the mechanism of corrosion protection abilities of multifunctional smart coatings, e.g. Polyaniline, on Stainless Steel via Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Cyclic Potentiodynamic Polarization techniques in chloride-containing media. Throughout her master, she visited Uppsala University as an electrochemistry trainee for 3 months (2019) during Erasmus+ traineeship scheme, where she learned materials characterization techniques.

Research Project

Production and characterization of novel CO2 reduction electrocatalysts based on bimetallic deposited clusters

My research project in based on the production and characterization of bimetallic cluster opted for CO2 electroreduction to valuable fuels and chemicals. Specifically, I will focus under supervision of Dr. Didier Grandjean and Prof. Peter Lievens on the deposition of bimetallic clusters onto oxide supports using the cluster deposition setups available at KU Leuven. The systems will be tested for their electrocatalytic activity and the most performant system will be characterized for its morphological, structural and electronic properties using ex situ techniques and in situ XAFS. In order to understand the mechanism of the reactions of the selected system, Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) experiments will be conducted in a cell along with theoretical modelling. In addition, I will take part in the fabrication of Gas Diffusion Electrodes (GDE).