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Research

Plasmon-Enhanced Photothermal NH3 Decomposition

Designed a photothermal reactor and plasmonic catalyst to turn ammonia back into H2, backed by a self-built data pipeline.

  • Catalysis
  • Reactor Systems
  • Code
Plasmon-Enhanced Photothermal NH₃ Decomposition schematic

Background

Ammonia is a carbon-free hydrogen carrier that liquefies easily, but cracking it back into H2 thermally takes temperatures above 500 °C. Plasmon-enhanced photothermal catalysis turns light into heat right at the active sites — aiming to drive the reaction with light instead of bulk heating.

What I did

  • Designed and built the photothermal reactor system: optics, reaction cell, gas handling.
  • Developed the plasmon-enhanced photothermal catalyst used inside it.
  • Built lat-pipeline and gc-analysis, automating lab data collection and GC processing (see Code).lat-pipelinegc-analysis