Professor of Chemistry at School of Science in RMIT University
The popular technology to utilise solar energy is the solar cells that absorb sunlight and convert it into electricity. However, solar cells need quite expensive materials to build, and they are usually difficult to recycle, while the solar electricity needs to be stored in batteries which is another source of pollution and an addition cost.
Professor Tianyi Ma develops innovative nanomaterials that can make full use of the entire spectrum of sunlight to directly split water and even seawater and wastewater for hydrogen production. These nanomaterials are low cost, environment-friendly and recyclable. He realises direct solar-to-hydrogen conversion without the intermediate electricity generation and costly battery energy storage.
He is a passionate science drumbeater. He actively accepts interviews to release scientific outcomes by many media such as PV Magazine and Bio Market Insights. As a community and/or editorial board member for many leading journals of Royal Society of Chemistry, Wiley and Elsevier, he acts as the ambassador to connect these journals to layman readers, dedicating to promote the open-access publication of educational papers that explain obscure science advances in plain language.
Renewable energy, materials science, nanotechnology, chemistry