Dr Zhipeng Ma joined the Particles and Catalysis Research Lab as PhD student following the completion of his Master studies from China University of Petroleum in 2018. He obtained PhD degree in Chemical Engineering at UNSW under supervision of Scientia Professor Rose Amal and Dr. Zhaojun Han in 2022.  His PhD study focused on the development of efficient catalyst materials for electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to valuable chemicals. Following completion of PhD, Dr Ma joined the ARC Training Centre for GlobH2E as a postdoctoral researcher. His postdoctoral research intent  to develop highly efficient catalyst materials, as well as process and reactor/unit designs, to optimise the activity and stability of the catalyst, selectivity toward reaction products as well as scalability of the process.

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Currently, Dr Ma is working on:

1. Development and optimization of air-to-ammonium system powered by renewable energy.

2. Design, development, and optimization of multi-phase catalysts for ammonium, urea, and different hydrocarbon production.

3. Mechanistic studies to investigate surface chemistry and reaction pathways for selective conversion of CO2 to value-added chemicals (syngas, formate, ethylene, urea, etc.) via electrocatalysis.

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Selected publications:

• Ma Z, Wan T, Zhang D, et al. Atomically Dispersed Cu Catalysts on Sulfide-Derived Defective Ag Nanowires for Electrochemical CO2 Reduction[J]. ACS nano, 2023, 17(3): 2387-2398.

• Ma Z, Tsounis C, Toe C Y, et al. Reconstructing Cu nanoparticles supported on vertical graphene surfaces via electrochemical treatment to tune the selectivity of CO2 reduction toward valuable products[J]. ACS Catalysis, 2022, 12(9): 4792-4805.

• Ma Z, Tsounis C, Kumar P V, et al. Enhanced electrochemical CO2 reduction of Cu@ CuxO nanoparticles decorated on 3D vertical graphene with intrinsic sp3‐type defect[J]. Advanced Functional Materials, 2020, 30(24): 1910118.

• Lim M, Sun J, Ma Z, et al. Engineering CuO x Nanoparticles on Cu Foam for Acidic Nitrate Reduction to Ammonium[J]. ACS Applied Nano Materials, 2023, 6(6): 4936-4945.

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