A recipient of the INSPIRE Faculty Award, instituted by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Govt. from India. Dr. Ashish Kumar Mishra, assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi, together with his group, has made significant achievements in developing nanomaterial-based supercapacitors to achieve high energy density and power density of supercapacitors.
The increasing demand for energy due to the growth of the human population and technological progress is a major challenge for human society. The high energy density of supercapacitors suggests that constant current can be drawn for long periods of time without charging. Therefore, cars can travel longer distances without recharging. Supercapacitors can be an alternative for such purposes.
Dr. Mishra and his research group at IIT (BHU) have developed a reduced graphene oxide (rGO) at a moderate temperature of 100 ° C with high capacity performance. The production process is cost effective and therefore suitable for commercial purposes. This work is published in Materials Research Express.
The group operating on carbon (carbon nanotubes, graphene) and metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, MoSe2, etc.) nanomaterial supercapacitors to achieve high energy density and power density of supercapacitors also has a new green approach synthesis of iron based nanocatalyst, which can be used for large scale production of Cabon Nanotubes.
Besides energy storage, the group of Dr. Mishra also on optoelectronic applications of nanomaterials. In this context, they are working on the development of new nanostructures of carbon and metal dichalcogenide semiconductors for photodetection and Surface Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Through this work, they have demonstrated excellent photodetection behavior of various architectures of nanoscale MoS2 detection of visible light. The high photoresponsiveness achieved in this work may be useful in developing ultrafast detectors for signaling purposes. The work is published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
The SERS can help detect harmful molecules that are present in ultra-low concentrations in water. His group has successfully demonstrated the detection of Rhodamine 6G (R6G), an organic laser dye down to the lowest limit of the sub-nanomolar concentration using rGO and MoS2 nanomaterials. This work has been published in Journal of Physical Chemistry C. They have also examined the nonlinear optical response of the developed material, suggesting that some of these materials can be used to develop protectors for powerful light sources such as lasers.
Their focus on energy and optoelectronic devices paves the way for the development of cost effective and efficient devices that can be used for energy storage applications. Their findings give way to materials that can be used as advanced photo detectors and also as optical sensors for controlling water pollution.
(With inputs from PIB)
