Ricerc@Sapienza

My research interests span from basic physics to electrochemistry and applied energy materials characterization. I consider my professional profile a multidisciplinary link between physics and electrochemistry. During my PhD I gained experience in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) not only in experimental set-ups, such as in-situ XAS measurements on nanocatalyst in a real proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), but also in data analysis, statistical simulations and interpretation of results. More in detail, I performed the structural characterization of a simple standard, bimetallic commercial Pt-Co nanomaterial which used as catalyst in PEMFC, combining XAS with XRD and TEM accounting for the actual size distribution and morphology. Results and characterization methodology are published also in the Handbook of Nanoelectrochemistry, Electrochemical Synthesis Methods, Properties and Characterization Techniques – Springer. After my PhD I improved my experience in electrochemistry by working at ZSW (- Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, Ulm, Germany) and at the University of Rome La Sapienza Chemistry Department as a post-doc working on the topic of Lithium ion batteries. During this period I also successfully brought my expertise of material characterization to my research and I applied the comprehensive characterization method proposed in my PhD to materials with very complex structures. Lately I approached the topic of time resolved spectroscopy because I was interested in studying the electronic dynamics of nanocatalysts which I had comprehensively characterized in terms of atomic structure. For this reason I obtained a post-doc position on instrumentation development. In recent years, I have held a position as a beamline scientist at BESSYII, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin at the ASAXS beamline. During this period I developed a set-up to obtain operando measurements combining Small Angle Scattering (SAXS) and XAS techniques. My current position is Marie Curie fellow (MSCA-IF-2020, Horizon 2020) at La Sapienza, Department of Chemistry as PI of the REALSEI project (opeRando chEmical space- and time-resoLved quantification of Solid Electrolyte Interphase in hard carbon anode for sustainable sodium ion batteries) https://sites.google.com/uniroma1.it/giorgiagreco-eng/home