Ahmad M. Mohammad Alakraa

Research in my group is inspired from the market need and the national and institutional targeted goals. It, simply, focuses on three main areas; Energy, Electronics and Environment. 

A- Energy

      The rapidly growing interest to secure a green abundant power supply replacing the traditional fossil fuels has been becoming obvious. In fact, fossil fuels that have long been dominating the power generation all over the entire world have intensively contaminated the atmosphere with potential carbon emissions (see the attached image for the carbon depositions on Mango leaves in Ismailia-Egypt) that stimulated the climate change and the global warming. In addition, the feedstock of fossil fuels has not become sufficient to convoy the rapid increase in the world population. Hence, new perspectives have been opened to commit to a zero- or low-carbon future with renewable energy. In my group, we are working to develop efficient tailor-designed nanocatalysts for catalytic, electrocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic applications in energy transformation.

A1-Liquid Fuel cells

Liquid fuel cells (LFCs) which utilizes the oxidation of small organic compounds as formic acid, methanol and ethylene glycol together with the oxygen reduction to produce electricity has received the prime attention in my group in the last decade. We succeeded, with a minute surface modification for the anodic catalyst (Pt), to offer a critical improvement for the overall performance of LFCs mitigating the severe CO poisoning of Pt and enhancing the kinetics of reactions involved therein. 

A2-Solar water splitting

Alternatively, owing to their capacity to feed the surface of earth’s crust with ca. 3 × 10²⁴ J/yr (120,000 TW or ca. 1kW/m²) in a wavelength band between 0.3 and 2.5 mm; a huge value exceeding the global need, the solar radiation represented a green generous solution for the energy crisis. Recently in my group, a research is launched to develop efficient nanoanodes for visible-induced photoelectrochemical water splitting. We are currently using the anodization technique to nanostructure the surface of metal oxide semiconductors in the way intensifying the absorption of visible radiation and mitigating the recombination of generated charge carriers.  

A3-Biodiesel

We are working now in the catalytic production of biodiesels (which are mono-alkyl esters and produced usually from the catalytic methanolysis of triglyceride esters) as a green alternative for petro-diesels. These biodiesels are made from vegetable oils or animal fats and produce very low emissions. They are biodegradable, non-toxic, of high flash point (>300F), and can be utilized alone, or blended with petro-diesel in the normal diesel engine. 

B-Electronics

We are also interested to fabricate and exploring the novel physical properties of one-dimensional metallic nanocontacts to semiconductor nanowires. We proposed a novel scheme combining the electrodeposition, template and vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth techniques to fabricate these nanocontacts. Interestingly, we succeeded to grow cobalt silicide and rhodium nanowire contacts to silicon nanowires (SiNWs), where the contact interface was formed along the cross-section of the wire. 

C- Environment

The applications aimed at improving the environment in my group is multidiverse.

C1- Gas-solid reactions

We are interested to investigate the impact of existing transition metal oxide semiconductors (particularly those of potential environmental applications as those concerning with polymerization, hydrogenation and vehicles’ exhaust technologies) in oxidizing and reducing atmosphere. We succeeded to develop a tracking technique monitoring the change in the electrical conductivity of these oxide semiconductors to inspect their kinetics of reduction and oxidation.

C2- Nanoparticles and multilayers assembly   

Tailoring gold nanoparticles in multilayers structures is of our research plan for targeted environmental and energy conversion applications. With the layer-by-layer (LBL) technique, multilayers (of different thicknesses) of nanostructured citrate-stabilized gold particles (AuNPs) were successfully fabricated and participated successfully on catalyzing important electrochemical application.

C3- Theoretical calculations

Quantum calculations are used in my group to predict the energy, molecular geometry, atomic charges, dipole moments, and rotational constants of important molecules (as nucleic acid bases), both in the neutral ground electronic S₀ and in the ground cationic D₀ states.

C4- Water treatment and electroanalysis

      We are also concerned with the analysis of a single and a mixture of several important oxidants, such as ozone, hydrogen peroxide, hypochlorite ions, and peroxyacetic acids. A simple and rapid potentiometric method with a high sensitivity and selectivity has been used to perform this analysis.

C5- Electrochemical ozone production

We are interested in ozone production as well for its potential as a green disinfectant and as a strong oxidizing agent in the treatment of drinking water, bottled water, beverages, wastewater, industrial wastes, air pollutants, swimming pool water, cooling tower water, as well as for the pulp, food, and medical industries. Combinations of ozone and hydrogen peroxide or ultraviolet radiation in water (advanced oxidation processes, AOP) can generate powerful oxidants useful in breaking down complex synthetic organic compounds. We are developing several spin and sputter-coated dimensionally stable anodes for the electrochemical ozone production.