Research Fellow
E-mail: muralidhar.c@gtiit.edu.cn, muralidhar.c@technion.ac.il, chourashiya@gmail.com
After receiving his Bachelors (Physics; 2003), Masters (Solid State Physics; 2005) and Ph.D. degree (Physics-Fuel cell technology; 2010) from Shivaji University, India, he worked as a postdoc at Chonnam National University (CNU), South Korea in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, for three years. In December 2014, he joined the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (ICIQ), Spain as a Marie Curie Fellow (postdoc ) under international-postdoctoral-mobility-program (IPMP), for two years. In September 2017, he was offered a postdoc position at the University of Southern Denmark in SDU Chemical Engineering, Dep. of Chemical Eng., Biotechnology, and Environmental Technology. Currently, he is working as a Research Fellow at Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, (Shantou, China) in Surface Engineering and Corrosion lab (Baron-lab).
His research interest is in the development of materials for electrochemical energy conversion and/or storage applications, such as Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SUK), Hydrogen-storage/Ni-MH batteries (CNU), PEM based electrolyzers (ICIQ) and PEM based fuel cells (SDU).
Besides, during his postdoc stays at CNU/ICIQ, the development of lab-scale reactors was one of the primary objectives. Using SolidWorks® (3D CAD software) he designed a modular tank for hybrid (gas/solid) storage of hydrogen with an auxiliary heat management system (at CNU) while two types of designs for electrolyzer-hardware for PEM based electrolysis (at ICIQ). He was solely responsible for their designing, component-purchasing, fabrication and testing/evaluation.
His interest in computer programming (C++/VC++) languages and instrumentation ( LabVIEW® Core 1, 2 and 3 course-certification) motivated him to do automation of laboratory experiments. He built a multi-device instrumentation program using this expertise to automate the electrolysis experiments (control/monitor the instruments interfaced to Windows® based PC). At SDU, he was engaged in designing hardware-interfacing software using LabVIEW for automated accelerated stress, oxygen reduction reaction activity and electrochemical surface area measurements. The software was also capable to do automated analysis of recorded measurements and create reports.
Research interests
- Materials science and engineering as thin films and nanomaterials
- Materials for SOFCs, Solid state hydrogen storage in metal hydrides (MH), Ni-MH batteries PEM electrolysis, PEM fuel cells, etc.
- Synthesis of inorganic materials using: • Polyol synthesis • Spray coating • Solution combustion synthesis • Spray pyrolysis • Tape-casting • Solid state reaction, etc.
- Electrochemistry of materials for electrochemical applications
- Use of in-situ/ex-situ experiments for correlation-analysis of materials structure/properties and their performance
- Instrumentation -Test-rig designing using laboratory instruments using their electronic interfaces with Windows-based PCs
- Development of LabVIEW based hardware-automation software – Automation of experimental protocol using laboratory instruments, their instrumentation and LabVIEW on Windows-PCs
- Development of LabVIEW based automation software – For automated data handling, repetitive calculation/analysis & generating excel report
- Prototype designing using CAD software such as SolidWorks and/or Inventor pro – Development of 3D solid designs desired for test-rig/prototype designing
Selected publications
- Solution combustion synthesized ceria or alumina supported Pt as cathode electrocatalyst for PEM fuel cells, Materials Chemistry and Physics 42 (2020) 122444.
- Solution combustion synthesis of highly dispersible and dispersed iridium oxide as anode catalyst in PEM water electrolysis, Journal of Materials Chemistry A,5 (2017) 4774-4778.
- Accurate determination of catalyst loading on glassy carbon disk and its impact on thin film rotating disk electrode for oxygen reduction reaction, Analytical Chem, 90 (2018) 14181–14187.
- Low-cost graphite as durable support for Pt-based cathode electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane-based fuel cells, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 43 (2018) 23275-23284.
Baron Lab 