Department of Chemistry
- Department of Chemistry
- People
- Professor Duncan Bruce
- Inorganic Materials Series
Inorganic Materials Series
Professor Duncan Bruce from the Department of Chemistry, alongside Richard Walton (Warwick) and Dermot O'Hare (Oxford), are now Series Editors for the Inorganic Materials Series published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
This new series will provide authoritative coverage of topical and emerging research areas in inorganic materials chemistry and its related disciplines in physics, biology and materials science. The series will cover the three key areas of materials class, function and methodology, with each volume themed around a specific type of material, characterisation method, preparation technique or application. The books are written at a level accessible to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers wishing to learn about the subject.
Energy Storage and Conversion Materials
Volume Editor: S. J. Skinner
Showcasing recent developments in inorganic materials in an area of societal interest and importance, this book provides an up-to-date introduction to the contemporary use of functional solids in emerging technologies. Energy Storage and Conversion Materials describes the application of inorganic materials in the storage and conversion of energy, with an emphasis on how solid-state chemistry allows development of new functional solids for energy applications. Dedicated chapters cover co-electrolysis, low temperature fuel cells, oxide thermoelectric devices for energy conversion, solid-state Li batteries and thermochemical energy conversion.
Bioinspired Inorganic Materials: Structure and Function
Volume Editor: S. R. Hall
The development of novel materials whose structure, properties or function are inspired by nature or living matter is a wide and dynamically evolving field. There is virtually no field of scientific endeavour that has not felt the touch of the ‘bioinspired’ ethos. Bioinspired Inorganic Materials provides an up-to-date review of the research, with some historical context. The emphasis throughout is on how bioinspiration is being used for cutting-edge applications. Chapters in the book cover big breakthroughs in bioinspiration for energy applications, surface technology, metamaterials and ceramics for regenerative medicine.
Solar Energy Capture Materials
Volume Editor: E. A. Gibson
Energy is an important area of contemporary research, with clear societal benefits. It is a fast-developing and application-driven research area, with chemistry leading the discovery of new solids, which are then studied by physicists and materials scientists. Solar Energy Capture Materials introduces a range of the different inorganic materials used, with an emphasis on how solid-state chemistry allows development of new functional solids for energy applications. Dedicated chapters cover silicon-based photovoltaic devices, compound semiconductor-based solar cells, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC), solution processed solar cells and emerging materials.
Post-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Materials
Volume Editor: Q. Wang
Inorganic solid adsorbents/sorbents are attractive materials for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from flue gases after fossil fuel combustion. Post-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Materials introduces the key inorganic materials used as adsorbents/sorbents with specific emphasis on their design, synthesis, characterization, performance, and mechanism. Dedicated chapters cover carbon-based adsorbents, zeolite- and silica-based adsorbents, metal–organic framework (MOF)-based adsorbents, and alkali-metal-carbonate-based adsorbents. The final chapter discusses the practical application aspects of these adsorbents used in carbon dioxide capture from flue gases.
Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Materials
Volume Editor: Q. Wang
Using inorganic solid adsorbents/sorbents is a promising approach for carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and is attracting intense attention from both academic and industrial fields. Pre-combustion Carbon Dioxide Capture Materials presents a range of the different inorganic materials that can be used as pre-combustion CO2 adsorbents/sorbents with specific emphasis on their design, synthesis, characterization, performance, and mechanism. Dedicated chapters cover layered double hydroxide (LDH) derived adsorbents, MgO-based adsorbents, CaO-based sorbents and alkali ceramics based sorbents.
Inorganic Materials Series (Wiley)
This series, edited by the same team, was published between 2010 and 2014 and are still available through the links below.
Local Structural Characterisation
Inorganic materials are at the heart of many contemporary real-world applications, in electronic devices, drug delivery, bio-inspired materials and energy storage and transport. In order to underpin novel synthesis strategies both to facilitate these applications and to encourage new ones, a thorough review of current and emerging techniques for materials characterisation is needed.
The volume examines important techniques that allow investigation of the structures of inorganic materials on the local atomic scale.
Multi Length-Scale Characterisation
This volume examines important experimental techniques needed to characterise inorganic materials in order to elucidate their properties for practical application. Addressing methods that examine the structures and properties of materials over length scales ranging from local atomic order to long-range order on the meso- and macro-scopic scales.
Structure from Diffraction Methods
Inorganic materials show a diverse range of important properties that are desirable for many contemporary, real-world applications. Good examples include recyclable battery cathode materials for energy storage and transport, porous solids for capture and storage of gases and molecular complexes for use in electronic devices. An understanding of the function of these materials is necessary in order to optimise their behaviour for real applications, hence the importance of 'structure–property relationships'.
The chapters presented in this volume deal with recent advances in the characterisation of crystalline materials. They include some familiar diffraction methods, thoroughly updated with modern advances. Also included are techniques that can now probe details of the three-dimensional arrangements of atoms in nanocrystalline solids, allowing aspects of disorder to be studied. Small-angle scattering, a technique that is often overlooked, can probe both ordered and disordered structures of materials at longer length scales than those probed by powder diffraction methods.
With applications in optoelectronics and photonics, quantum information processing, nanotechnology and data storage, molecular materials enrich our daily lives in countless ways. These materials have properties that depend on their exact structure, the degree of order in the way the molecules are aligned and their crystalline nature. Small, delicate changes in molecular structure can totally alter the properties of the material in bulk.
With physical properties that often may not be described by the transposition of physical laws from 3D space across to 2D or even 1D space, low-dimensional solids exhibit a high degree of anisotropy in the spatial distribution of their chemical bonds. This means that they can demonstrate new phenomena such as charge-density waves and can display nanoparticulate (0D), fibrous (1D) and lamellar (2D) morphologies.
In the past few decades, the increasingly routine use of advanced structural probes for studying the structure and dynamics of the solid state has led to some dramatic developments in the field of porous solids. These materials are fundamental in a diverse range of applications, such as shape-selective catalysts for energy-efficient organic transformations, new media for pollutant removal, and gas storage materials for energy technologies. Porosity in inorganic materials may range from the nano-scale to the macro-scale, and the drive towards particular properties remains the goal in this fast-developing area of research.
Functional oxides have a wide variety of applications in the electronic industry. The discovery of new metal oxides with interesting and useful properties continues to drive much research in chemistry, physics, and materials science. In Functional Oxides five topical areas have been selected to illustrate the importance of metal oxides in modern materials chemistry: Noncentrosymmetric Inorganic Oxide Materials; Geometrically Frustrated Magnetic Materials; Lithium Ion Conduction in Oxides; Thermoelectric Oxides; Transition Metal Oxides - Magnetoresistance and Half-Metallicity.
In an age of global industrialisation and population growth, the area of energy is one that is very much in the public consciousness. Fundamental scientific research is recognised as being crucial to delivering solutions to these issues, particularly to yield novel means of providing efficient, ideally recyclable, ways of converting, transporting and delivering energy. This volume deals considers a selection of the state-of-the-art materials that are being designed to meet some of the energy challenges we face today.