People

Principal Investigator

Photo of Anna Hankin

Dr Anna Hankin

I joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as a Lecturer/Assistant Professor in 2020. Previously I conducted my PhD and postdoctoral research in the Electrochemical Engineering research group at Imperial. I have a Master's degree in Physics.

Research interests

  • Electrochemical energy conversion
  • Water splitting & CO2 reduction
  • Experimental characterisation of semiconductor | electrolyte interfaces
  • Micro-kinetic modelling of (photo-)electrochemical processes
  • Design, characterisation and modelling of scaled (photo-)electrochemical reactor systems
  • Metal recovery by electrodeposition
  • CO2 utilisation

Postdoctoral Research Associates

Dr Inyoung Jang

Hi, I am a Research Associate at Imperial College London and I received my Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees at Hanyang University, South Korea. I am interested in developing high-performance reversible solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) for clean power generation and CO2 electrolysis. I am currently working on 3D printing of electrode/electrolyte layers for SOFCs & electrolysis cells and predicting their optimal geometry via computational simulation.

Dr Xiaochu Wei

Hi, I am a Research Associate working with Dr Anna Hankin and Professor Magda Titirici. I completed my PhD in 2022, supervised by Dr Anna Hankin and Professor Geoff Kelsall in Chemical Engineering Department at Imperial College London where I also obtained an MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering in 2017. My research focuses on the development of new processes to recover critical metals from multi-chemistry, end-of-life Li-ion and Na-ion batteries.  

Dr John Rodriguez Acosta

Hello, I am working on up-scaling solar hydrogen production. I am modelling, designing, fabricating and testing novel prototype photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems. I received my Bachelor’s and PhD degrees at University of Valley, Colombia. I have experience in photoelectrocatalytic processes in wastewater treatment, modelling and simulation of chemical and electrochemical processes, development of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for virus detection and synthesis and bioconjugation of gold nanoparticles for sensing purposes.

PhD Researchers

Jatuporn (Nahmkang) Banjong

Greetings everyone! I am currently a 3rd year PhD student at the Department of Chemical Engineering and my study is funded by the Royal Thai Government scholarship. My research project involves using a state-of-the-art 3D inkjet printing machine to fabricate components for an electrolyser, a device used to produce hydrogen by electrochemical water splitting. Before coming to Imperial, I received an MEng degree in Chemical Engineering from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand.

Zhixu (Derek) Zhu

Hi, everyone! I am a second year PhD student at Imperial College London and funded by the Department of Chemical Engineering. My PhD research focuses on tackling global warming and the utilisation of carbon dioxide in carbon nanotube production with electrochemical methods. Before I started my PhD, I finished my MRes research on carbon aerogels in Department of Chemistry at Imperial. Before I joined Imperial, I received my BSc degree in Chemistry from University of Reading.

Mengya Yang

Hi! I am Mengya, a second year PhD student funded by the Department of Chemical Engineering. I received my BEng degree from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Central South University, and then I studied for a Master's degree at Zhejiang University, researching electrocatalyst materials. My PhD project focuses on the development and scale-up of photoelectrode materials for solar water splitting.

George Creasey

Hi! I am a first year PhD student at Imperial College London funded by the Department of Chemical Engineering. In 2022, I completed an integrated Master’s degree (MEng Chemical Engineering) at the University of Bath, with a year in industry at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). My PhD project focuses on the development and scale-up of photoelectrochemical reactors for hydrogen production.

Kanyapat (Kloy) Plub-in

Hi! I am a first year PhD student at Imperial College London and funded by the Royal Thai Government Scholarship. I graduated with a BEng degree in Chemical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand before completing an MSc degree in Advanced Chemical Engineering at Imperial College in 2022. My PhD project focuses on the development of catalysts for electrochemical glycerol oxidation to co-produce hydrogen and value-added chemicals.

Hanzhi Ye

Hi, I am Hanzhi Ye, a first-year PhD student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. I finished my BEng degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Manchester in 2020. I received my MSc degree in Advanced Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. My PhD research focus is on electrochemical oxidation of glycerol.

Graduated PhD Researchers

Xiaochu Wei (2022)

Xiaochu Wei (2022)
Recovering materials from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries

Samara Sadeek (2021)

Samara Sadeek (2021)
Electrochemical behaviour of carbon steel in aqueous amine solvents for post combustion CO2 capture

MEng in Chemical Engineering

2022/2023

Sharwari Dixit - 'Design of a hybrid electrolyser system for H2 production using an intermittent renewable power source'

Sid  Halder & Jinjie Zhu - 'Modelling of optical components for H2 production in modular photoelectrochemial reactors using COMSOL Multiphysics'

Marco Tome Freire & Daniel Binks - 'CO2 utilisation in carbon nanotube (CNT) production'

 2021/2022

Lok Wong - 'The creation, comparison, and validation of one- and two- dimensional vanadium redox flow battery stack process models'

Christopher Lawrence & Euichul Jeong - 'Metal electrodeposition to mitigate resistive losses associated with scale up of photoanodes in photoelectrochemical reactors'

MSc / MRes Students

2021/2022

Kanyapat Plub-in - 'Electrocatalyst development for anion exchange membrane water electrolyser'  -  MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Feiran Li - 'Carbon dioxide utilisation in carbon nanotube production' - MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Bochen Li - 'Solar hydrogen generation in an up-scaled photoelectrochemical reactor' - MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Alex Fleetwood - 'Photo-electrochemical reactors for solar-powered hydrogen production' - MRes in Catalysis: Chemistry and Engineering, Department of Chemistry - co-supervised with Dr Andreas Kafizas (Chemistry).

2020/2021

Giovanni Lento - 'Carbon dioxide utilisation in carbon nanotube production' -  MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Yuming Zhang - 'Optimisation of photoelectrode substrate structures for up-scaled photoelectrochemical reactors via kinetic modelling' -  MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Nicole Marroquin - 'The effect of light attenuation on photoelectrochemical reactor efficiency' -  MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering.

Yuqi Chen - 'Moving towards the low-cost solar generation of H2 fuel - can metal oxide heterojunctions make this a reality?' - MRes in Catalysis: Chemistry and Engineering, Department of Chemistry - co-supervised with Dr Andreas Kafizas (Chemistry).

Christos Krigkou - 'Improving the performance of large-scale metal oxide heterojunction photoanodes for solar-driven water splitting: understanding their limitations through prototype device testing' - MSci in Chemistry, Department of Chemistry - co-supervised with Dr Andreas Kafizas (Chemistry).

2019/2020

Connor Donovan - 'Moving towards the low-cost solar generation of H2 fuel - can metal oxide heterojunctions make this a reality?' - MRes in Catalysis: Chemistry and Engineering, Department of Chemistry - co-supervised by Dr Andreas Kafizas (Chemistry).

Gian Bains - 'A mechanistic study into the electrochemical stability of deep eutectic solvents' - MSc Advanced Chemical Engineering - co-supervised by Dr Sze-yin Tan (Chemical Engineering).

Undergraduate Research Opportunities (UROP) Students

Haiyi Wang (2022) - 'Recovery of metals from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries'

Bohui (Robert) Tang (2022) - 'Development of an online tool for modelling electrochemical thermodynamics' (contd. project of E. Lam and C. Lawrence)

Sharwari Dixit (2021) - 'Enhancement of photoelectrode performance in green hydrogen production via electrodeposition of conductive metal interlayers'

Heather Page (2021) - 'Solar fuel devices database: Quantifying progress, unifying reporting, and enabling benchmarking'

Elton Lam (2021) - 'Development of an online tool for modelling electrochemical thermodynamics' (contd. project of C. Lawrence)

Christopher Lawrence (2020) - 'Development of an online tool for modelling electrochemical thermodynamics'

Federico Trotta (2019) - 'Synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using cameillia sinesis as biological reducing agent to produce conductive silver Inks for photoelectrochemical applications'