My research interests revolve around materials chemistry and involve a variety of functional nanostructured inorganic materials including semiconductors, organic-inorganic hybrids, and ceramics as well as molecular compounds including clusters, transition metal complexes, and single-site catalysts relevant to a variety of energy-related applications. Throughout the years, I have developed expertise and experience with homogeneous and heterogeneous photocatalysts and I am now especially interested in designing hybrid photosystems that combine the advantages of both approaches.

My main research activities are closely related to the following projects of our research division:

• Fundamental studies (kinetics, mechanisms, light-matter interactions)
• New concepts in photocatalysis

Overall, I obtained more than 2 Million Euro funding ver the past 5 years as principal investigator (PI) and project leader, including

Within the framework of a national Austrian Science Fund (FWF) Stand-Alone Project P32801 “Surface-Immobilized Molecular Chalcogen-based Metalate Clusters for Photocatalysis” (2020-2024), my team has started the exploration of all-inorganic clusters in light-driven catalytic applications, aiming to generate green hydrogen and other solar fuels.

Two Ph.D. students (Samar Batool and Stephen N. Myakala) were fully funded for the period of the project and completed their PhD Thesis in 2024.

Currently, the team is supported by the CoE MECS with 2 PhD students and 1 post-doctoral researcher working on the topics of single-site photocatalysis and metal-organic frameworks.

“The list of my publications can be found on the google scholar, opens an external URL in a new window or ORCID, opens an external URL in a new window profiles, as well as on my publication list.

A few selected papers that are central to my research are listed below:

1. “Thiomolybdate clusters: from homogeneous catalysis to heterogenization and active sites”, Advanced Materials, 2024, 36, 2305730 [link]
2. “Immobilization of a [Co^IIICo^II(H₂O)W₁₁O₃₉]^7– Polyoxoanion for the Photocatalytic Oxygen Evolution Reaction”, ACS Materials Au, 2022, just accepted [link]
3. “Surface-anchoring and active sites of [Mo₃S₁₃]^2- clusters as co-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution”, ACS Catalysis, 2022, 12, 11, 6641–6650 [link]
4. “Selective ligand removal to improve accessibility of active sites in hierarchical MOFs for heterogeneous photocatalysis”, Nature Communications, 2022, 13 (1), 1-12 [link]
5. “Phosphate‐Templated Encapsulation of a {Co^II₄O₄} Cubane in Germanotungstates as Carbon‐Free Homogeneous Water Oxidation Photocatalysts”, ChemSusChem, 2021, 14 (12), 2529 [link]
6. “Elucidating the formation and active state of Cu co-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution”, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2021, 9, 21958-21971 [link]
7. “Isolation strategy towards earth-abundant single-site co-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction”, Catalysts, 2021, 11 (4), 417 [link]
8. “Ti-based MOFs: New insights on the impact of ligand composition and hole scavengers on stability, charge separation and photocatalytic hydrogen evolution”, Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, 2021, 283, 119626 [link]
9. “Polyoxometalates on Functional Substrates: Concepts, Synergies, and Future Perspectives”, Advanced Science, 2020, 7, 1903511 [link]
10. “Immobilization of Co, Mn, Ni and Fe oxide co-catalysts on TiO₂ for photocatalytic water splitting reactions”, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, 2019, 7 (31), 18568-18579 [link]

I have acquired various teaching experiences throughout the years at the TU Wien. My current position implies a rather heavy teaching involvement and a variety of courses which can be sub-divided into lectures (I take part as a sole- or co-lecturer) and labs (I take part as a supervisor, organizer, or student assistant):

Ph.D. students*

• Madeline Weisweiller (11.2023 – ongoing) – Project-funded (FFG)
• Alaaddin Cem Ok (07.2023 – 06.2024) – visiting Ph.D. from Marmara University, Turkey (group of Prof. C. Sarıoğlu)
• Pablo Ayala* (11.2020 – ongoing) – University-funded
• Stephen N. Myakala* (06.2020 – ongoing) – Project-funded (FWF), holder of the Chemical Monthly Fellowship (2023-2024) and awardee of the Best Poster Award at EUROMOF2023
• Dr. Samar Batool* (2020 – 2024) – Project-funded (FWF). Ph.D. Thesis “Metal chalcogen based molecular clusters for light-driven hydrogen evolution reaction”
• Dr. Hanane Boumeriame (02.2020 – 08.2020) – visiting Ph.D. from the University of Porto, Portugal (group of Prof. J. Faria) via Ernst Mach Grant
• Dr. Jasmin S. Schubert* (2018 – 2023) – University-funded, holder of the Otto Vogl Prize (2019) for the Best Master Thesis in Chemistry from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Ph.D. Thesis “Earth-abundant co-catalysts for photocatalytic hydrogen generation”
• Dr. Kamonchanook Roongraung (02.2018 – 08.2018) – visiting Ph.D. from the King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thailand (group of Prof. S. Chuangchote)
• Dr. Sreejith P. Nandan* (2017 – 2023) – University and Project-Funded (DFG), holder of the Christiane Hörbiger Award (2020) and awardee of the Best Poster Award at Nanomat 2019. Ph.D. Thesis “All-inorganic molecular clusters for photocatalytic water splitting: from homogeneous to heterogenized photosystems”

Master students*

• Madeline Weisweiller (09.2022 - 09.2023)
  Thesis title “Photocatalytic generation of solar fuels and simultaneous oxidation of microplastics”. Full text here.
• Adrian Ertl (09.2022 - 08.2023)
  Thesis title “Design of Metal-Organic Frameworks containing Single-Metal-Site Cocatalysts for Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production”. Full text here.
• Andreas Lechner (08.2021 – ongoing)
• Vivien Madi (02.2020 - 09.2021) – is currently at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT)
  Thesis title “Synthesis and control of nanostructured mixed metal oxide photocatalysts”.
• Pablo Ayala (08.2019 – 05.2020)
  Thesis title “Towards single-site photocatalysis: design of non-noble-metal-based systems”.
  A part of the results of the project was also published in Catalysts.
• Jasmin S. Schubert (09.2017 – 06.2018)
  Thesis title “Synthesis and characterization of metal oxide clusters attached to TiO₂ nanoparticles for photocatalytic water splitting reactions”.
  A part of the results of the project has been also published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A
  Jasmin received the Otto Vogl Prize for the Best Master Thesis in Chemistry from the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Bachelor students*

• Aleksei Ushakov (07.2023 – ongoing)
• Melanie Horvath (07.2023 – 04.2024)
  Thesis title “Light-assisted generation of H2 and CH4 from microplastic wastes: the role of cocatalysts”
• Magdalena Ladisich (07.2022 – 06.2023)
  Thesis title “Visible-light assisted water purification using a Ti-based metal-organic framework”
  This project contributed to the publication in JMCA here
• Björn Schneider (07.2021 – 09.2021)
  Thesis title “Synthesis and Characterization of Mixed-Metal MOFs (UiO-66) for the Photocatalytic Hydrogen-Evolution-Reaction”
• Alois Rottensteiner (07.2020 – 09.2020)
  Thesis title “Synthesis of Titanium-based Metal-Organic Frameworks and Investigation of their Use as Dark Photocatalytic Systems for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction”
• Matthias Preidl (07.2019 – 08.2019)
  Thesis title “Investigating cobalt-based polyoxometalates in photocatalytic systems for the water oxidation reaction”
  This project contributed to the publication in ChemSusChem.
• Andreas Lechner (05.2018 – 09.2019)
  Thesis title “Study on influential factors in the synthesis of copper co-catalyst assisted TiO₂ based photocatalysts for H₂ generation by sacrificial water splitting”
  This project led us to a publication in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

* All Phd-, Master- and Bacherlort Thesis were supervised by Prof. Eder and co-supervised by me till 06.2024

Internship students (not updated)

• Samuel Lukas Hartmann (2022) “Development of MXenes as co-catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction”
• Magdalena Ladisch (2022) “COK-47 and platinum as a catalyst for photocatalytic water splitting – experiments on cocatalyst concentration and sacrificial agents”
• Lisa Grötzl (2022) “MOF-assisted photocatalytic H₂ generation: Synergy of COK-47 and thiomolybdate”
• Simon Eder (2021) “Metal-organic frameworks impregnated with thiomolybdate [Mo₃S₁₃]^2- clusters for photocatalytic hydrogen-evolution reaction”
• Filip Šmatlo (2021-2022, Erasmus +)
• Adrian Ertl (2021) “Zr- and Ti-based MOFs for hydrogen evolution: ligand composition and impregnation of thiomolybdate clusters”
• Madeline Weisweiller (2021) “Synthesis of titania-based photocatalysts by applying single site isolation strategy”
• Elias Lagger, Nick Parak and Valentina Salbrechter (summer internship 2021)
• Veronika Zeller (2021) “Characterization of Na₂Mo₃S­ clusters using (LA-)ICP-MS” (in cooperation with Andreas Limbeck)
• Jim Cloos (2021) “Catalytic hydrogen evolution activity of different photocatalysts”
• Ana Zilic (2021) “Synthesis of Au₂₅/Pd₁Au₂₄ clusters and their photocatalytic activity” (in cooperation with Noelia Barrabes)
• Michael Ketter (2021)
• Alireza Emami (2020) “Synthetic strategies towards single-site photocatalysis:”
• Quynh Nguyen (2020) “Attachment of polyoxometalates on TiO₂ for optimization of photocatalytic properties in oxygen evolution reaction”
• Glatzl Stefan (2020) “A guideline to construct a Mott-Schottky plot, flat band potential measurements and a calculated density of states of metal-organic frameworks”
• Manuel Holzmann (2019) “Fabrication of MOF-based photoelectrodes”
• Kristina Hofer (2019) “CNT-TiO₂ nanocarbon-inorganic hybrids”
• Christoph Riedl (2018) “Towards reaction kinetics of PTMs with TiO₂ nanoparticles”
• Max Kolbinger (2018) “Quantification of hydrogen evolution reaction”
• Janko Popovic (2018) “Decoration of TiO₂ with non-noble-metal-based co-catalysts”
• Antony Litovoilis (2018) “Photocatalytic deactivation in mixed-phase TiO₂”
• Ayala Pablo (2018) “Conversion of Cu-containing MIL-125 into active inorganic photocatalysts”
• Amy Zhongyu Ho (2018) “Towards in situ dye-sensitized photocatalysis”