Andreas Kafizas

Andreas Kafizas is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London. His research is focused on developing light-activated coatings that can drive useful chemistry using sunlight. For these coatings to be commercially viable and sustainable, they are produced using low-cost, upscalable routes using earth abundant, non-toxic materials.

Andreas is interested in developing new light-activated materials to improve the function of these coatings. His core interests are to develop light-activated materials for renewable fuels production (hydrogen fuel from water and carbon-based fuels from CO2), air remediation (NOx removal) and water remediation (arsenic removal). He routinely studies the excited states formed in these light-activated materials using time-resolved spectroscopies, and links their photophysical behaviour to their activity. He also has a keen interest in combinatorial materials discovery, and has developed novel high throughput strategies for optimising functional materials.

Andreas Kafizas completed his MSci in Chemistry at University College London in 2007, where he remained to undertake his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Ivan Parkin. Upon completing his PhD in 2011, he was awarded the Ramsay Medal for best graduating doctor in the Department of Chemistry. In 2012, he was awarded the Ramsay Fellowship, where he studied under Prof. James Durrant at Imperial College London. In 2016, he was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship, Imperial College London. In 2018, he was awarded a Lectureship at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London.

During his research career, he has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers and written 5 book chapters (>5,000 citations, h-index 46). Andreas has also consulted on photocatalytic coatings for air purification for the Environmental Industries Commission, and for the companies CodiKoat and SmogStop® Barriers.

Andreas is actively involved in showcasing his research to the public, recently taking part in Pint of Science, the Imperial College Festival and Outreach in schools.

Research Interests

• solar fuels (water splitting and CO2 reduction)
• photocatalytic coatings for air purification (de-NOx)
• water remediation (arsenic removal)
• chemical vapour deposition
• combinatorial methods for material's discovery and optimisation
• transient absorption spectroscopy

Publications

Journals

• Wong Y, Li Y, Lin Z, et al., 2022, Studying the effects of processing parameters in the aerosol-assisted chemical vapour deposition of TiO2 coatings on glass for applications in photocatalytic NOx remediation, Applied Catalysis A: General, Vol:648, ISSN:0926-860X, Pages:1-12
• Schukraft GEM, Moss B, Kafizas AG, et al., 2022, Effect of band bending in photoactive MOF-based heterojunctions., Acs Applied Materials and Interfaces, Vol:14, ISSN:1944-8244, Pages:19342-19352
• Bullen JC, Heiba HF, Kafizas A, et al., 2022, Parasitic light absorption, rate laws and heterojunctions in the photocatalytic oxidation of arsenic(III) using composite TiO2/Fe2O3, Chemistry: a European Journal, Vol:28, ISSN:0947-6539
• Heiba HF, Bullen JC, Kafizas A, et al., 2022, The determination of oxidation rates and quantum yields during the photocatalytic oxidation of As(III) over TiO2, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry, Vol:424, ISSN:1010-6030, Pages:113628-113628
• Pinto F, Wilson A, Moss B, et al., 2022, Systematic exploration of WO3/TiO2 heterojunction phase space for applications in photoelectrochemical water splitting, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C: Energy Conversion and Storage, Optical and Electronic Devices, Interfaces, Nanomaterials, and Hard Matter, Vol:126, ISSN:1932-7447, Pages:871-884