Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The proposed research program will focus on the design and development of novel hybrid "smart" functional materials with pre-defined chromogenic, sensing or catalytic functions. These molecular-based materials will be prepared by controlled self-assembly of metal-organic building blocks (molecular "Lego") onto suitable conductive surfaces defined by the targeted application. Surface-confined metal-organic layers, SMOLs on the high surface area rigid transparent metal oxide supports will be programmed to feature electrochromic, thermochromic, and electroluminescent function or their combinations resulting in "smart" environmentally friendly and cost-effective tunable coatings. When applied to building walls and windows, these coatings are aimed to alter passing and reflected portions of the sunlight, thus adjusting the temperature on the premises and reducing the energy consumption for buildings' heating and cooling. Metal-organic layers on conductive cellulose nanopaper and textile supports will be tailored for the development of erasable e-paper and "intelligent" chameleon chromogenic fabric that may lead to a significant reduction of paper waste and could be used for express health monitoring and diagnostics. Well-defined metal-organic active sites bearing earth-abundant transition metals will be prepared and embedded on carbon, graphene oxide, and metal-oxide-based nanostructured supports to discover the electrocatalytic activity of the novel surfaces towards oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution, and CO2 reduction reactions. Finally, colorimetric and electrochemical metal ion sensing and removal abilities of the novel surfaces decorated by organic moieties will be explored and finely tuned. Resulting technologies may be game-changing for the development of adaptive colour-changing coatings, non-emissive displays and smart boards, antiglare mirrors, erasable e-paper and intelligent textiles, thermo-indicators, express-sensors and catalytic materials. The program will start with the rational design and synthesis of a series of nitrogenous ligands and their complexes with late transition metals (creation of molecular "Lego" units). The resulting molecular building blocks will be used to create surface-confined mono- or multilayers on a range of conductive supports, then assembled into solid-state devices and optimized for the best performance and durability. The research will involve the development of suitable surface conductive supports (high surface area rigid or flexible/ bendable supports) as well as studies of the device architectures and optimizations. HQP supported by this research program will get experience in synthetic inorganic/organometallic chemistry and main analytical and spectroscopic techniques. Moreover, they will get valuable knowledge and skills in the preparation, characterization, performance testing and optimization of materials and devices, surface science, and electrochemistry.