News

Success of our young researchers - a project approved for funding under the program "Innovation Vouchers"

Within the program "Innovation Vouchers", of the Innovation Fund of the Republic of Serbia, the project "Development and validation of analytical methods for determining the content of PAH in medicinal and spice plants" was approved for funding. The participants of the project on behalf of ICTM are dr. Milica Sentić (project leader) and Ivana Trajković, from the Department of Ecology and TechnoEconomics.

The success of our researchers – interview in European media

The news portal of the European consortium Graphene Flagship published an interview with our colleague dr Marko Spasenović. In the „Spotlight“ section of the website, our colleague spoke about the development of graphene gas sensors and microphones in our Center for Microelectronic Technologies.

The Graphene Flagship is a project that the European Commission (EC) is funding with a billion euros over a period of ten years. The project was, together with the Human Brain Project, the first that the EC launched in 2013 as part of the FET Flagships program, with the aim to address big scientific and technological challenges of today through long-term multidisciplinary research and development. The consortium consists of over 150 academic and industrial partners in 23 countries. ICTM has been an Associated Member since 2018.

The success of our researchers - a paper published in Nature Materials

In cooperation with the group of Dr. Vojislav Stamenković, from the "Argonne National Laboratory - Material Science Division," our colleague Dr. Dušan Tripković published the paper "Eliminating Dissolution of Pt-based Electrocatalysts at the Atomic Scale" in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Materials (Nature Materials, 2020, 19, 1207-1214, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0735-3, IF₂₀₁₉=38.663).

Solving the problem of stability of catalysts used in fuel cells is a long-standing challenge for many researchers in this field. The paper presents a new approach in solving the stability problem of Pt catalysts, i.e., how to prevent the dissolution of Pt at the atomic level leading to a decrease in catalyst activity. The problem is approached from two sides: protection of Pt catalysts by using thin gold films, which protects low-coordinated active sites on the platinum surface and second, deposition of platinum on the already existing gold film that leads to a significant increase in the ratio of 111 plane, which is the most stable orientation in the oxygen reduction reaction. As this reaction represents the largest energy loss in fuel cells, it is also the main obstacle to the full commercialization of this technology. Using both methods, a 3 nm Pt3Au / C catalyst was obtained in which platinum dissolution was almost eliminated, and thus the obtained catalyst was 30 times more stable compared to the commercial 3 nm Pt / C catalyst.

The paper can be read on the publisher's website. The article is also available in the ICTM's institutional repository (published version and peer-reviewed version).

Congratulations to our colleagues, and we wish them much success in their further research!

Research stay and cooperation with the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana under the EIT Climate-KIC program "Pioneers into Practice"

Dr. Sanja Šešlija, a Research Associate at University of Belgrade - Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy, has spent five weeks at the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia, as one of the representatives of Serbia in this year's edition of the EIT Climate-KIC program "Pioneers into Practice "implemented by Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Serbia. The visit's central goals were directed toward the promotion of the re-use practices of agricultural waste and the foundation of positive socioeconomic effects of the scientific concept in which novel value is created from waste and polluting materials. The conducted research activities included extraction of pectin from waste apple pomace using conventional solvents, ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents (DES), and the physico-chemical characterization of isolated products. This collaboration has joined together expertise and knowledge from two renowned scientific institutions and set the ground for the future development of more sustainable production of chemicals and environmental protection.