As the global energy landscape shifts toward sustainability, innovative technologies for energy conversion and storage are becoming increasingly vital. In her Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF) funded ECATSURF project, postdoc researcher Debashrita Sarkar will explore how green hydrogen can be efficiently produced through water splitting.
To shift toward more sustainable energy solutions, efficient technologies for energy conversion and storage are critical. One promising pathway is the generation of green hydrogen through water splitting, where water is oxidized to release oxygen (O₂) and reduced to produce hydrogen (H₂). “Similarly, the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), essential in fuel cells and batteries, plays a crucial role in enabling clean energy applications. However, both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and ORR are inherently slow due to their complex, multi-step mechanisms”, explains Debashrita Sarkar, postdoctoral researcher in DIFFER’s Electrochemical Materials and Interfaces (EMI) research group.
Electrocatalysts for sustainable energy
During the two-year ECATSURF project, Sarkar aims to tackle this challenge by designing and developing efficient, cost-effective electrocatalysts based on transition metals. These are materials incorporating elements such as cobalt, iron, nickel, and molybdenum. Sarkar: “My project is mostly about sustainable energy and its technologies. As we know that we have an energy crisis going on, it would be better to use the renewable resources we have, and convert them into the energy that we need. For that, hydrogen is a very good alternative to the traditional fuel around us.”
However, producing green hydrogen in a sustainable way is an expensive process, especially when we have to rely on renewable resources. Sarkar: “When water is split, one part of the process creates oxygen and the other creates hydrogen. For this to work efficiently, both reactions need to happen quickly. However, in many cases, the step that produces oxygen tends to be slower and more challenging. This is the area where my project will add value: by developing very efficient materials (catalysts) to convert water into oxygen and hydrogen and also track the reaction in real time.”
In electrocatalysis, many electrocatalysts function as precatalysts, undergoing chemical and morphological changes to become active catalysts, a process known as surface reconstruction. Understanding this transformation is crucial for improving electrocatalytic performance which will be the primary focus of ECATSURF project.
Experimental setups
Researchers in the electrocatalysis field often stumble upon questions like: What is the mechanism of the chemical reaction? Which details can we unravel as the reaction takes place? These are the questions Sarkar will be working on the coming years. Sarkar explains: “The exciting part is that we will be tracking the surface reconstruction during electrocatalytic reaction using operando spectroscopy: a powerful tool that lets us monitor the process as it happens. This way, we can observe each step of the reaction using the experimental setups at DIFFER and with our partners in Germany.”
New skills
For Sarkar, receiving the MSCA-PF is an opportunity to grow and learn new skills. Technically, she will gain hands-on experience with advanced deposition methods, including the brand-new Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) facility at DIFFER. This cutting-edge equipment will help her develop the precursor for the transition metal catalyst.
But the project offers much more than technical progress. “I’ll also be working closely with professors in Germany on operando spectroscopy, allowing us to study reactions in real time”, Sarkar says. “Beyond that, I’m eager to strengthen my communication and networking skills, and to become a better science communicator. Since this is a publicly funded project, it’s important to share my research in an accessible way. I’m also looking forward to managing the project with various stakeholders from host, collaborators, European research agency to public, it’s both a challenge and an exciting step forward.”
Meaningful collaborations
The ECATSURF project is a collaborative effort involving interdisciplinary expertise in materials chemistry, thin-film deposition, electrochemistry, and advanced operando spectroscopy. Partners include Dr. Anja Bieberle-Hütter (DIFFER, The Netherlands), Prof. Holger Dau (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), Dr. Marcel Risch (Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Germany) and Dr. Serhey Cherevko (Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy, Germany).
Sarkar: “DIFFER offers excellent facilities, exactly what a materials chemist like me needs to carry out this project effectively. From advanced techniques for catalyst deposition to full support for wet chemical synthesis, everything is available here. Material science research also depends heavily on a wide range of characterization tools such as XRD, SEM, TEM, AFM, and Raman spectroscopy, all of which are accessible at DIFFER. In addition, the institute’s close collaboration with TU/e for deposition and characterization techniques gave me the confidence to choose DIFFER as my host institution and to design a proposal that can be successfully completed within the project’s timeframe.”
Career in science
Sarkar completed her PhD in 2021 at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Kolkata, India, where she specialized in inorganic nanomaterials for photo- and electrocatalytic applications. She then joined Université Paris Cité in France, as a postdoctoral researcher (2021–2023), focusing on photoelectrocatalytic CO₂ reduction into value-added chemicals.
Since November 2023, she has been part of the Electrochemical Materials and Interfaces (EMI) group at DIFFER, working with Dr. Anja Bieberle-Hütter to investigate the reaction pathways of photoelectrochemical oxygen evolution on hematite thin films using operando ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Sarkar’s MSCA project will run from November 2025 to October 2027. ECATSURF stands for ‘Advancing electrocatalytic performance through tailored surface reconstruction’.
About the MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship
The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships aim to enhance the creative and innovative potential of researchers holding a PhD, allowing them to acquire new skills through advanced training and exposure to international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral mobility. The total budget that has been granted by ERA (European Research Area) to execute Sarkar's ECATSURF project is 232.916,16 euros.
Authors: Debashrita Sarkar, Rianne van Hoek
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