2022 NEWS AND ANNOUCEMENTS

We would like to congratulate Dr. Baptayev for publishing an article in Materials Today: Proceedings entitled "Ternary NiCuS electrocatalyst for iodide/triiodide reduction in dye-sensitized solar cells". 

To read the full article, click this link.

Dr. Balanay was invited to give a talk on "Environmental challenges in Sustainable Development" during the conference on the Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction and Sustainable Development - Interdependencies and Linkages in a Transforming World last October 11 - 12, 2022 at the School of Medicine, Nazarbayev University. This was sponsored by WHO, NU, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Aga Kahn Agency for Habitat.

Dr. Balanay presented a virtual research talk at the prestigious ACS Fall 2022 conference, which was hosted in Chicago, USA, August 21-25, 2022. The talk is under the Division of Environmental Chemistry with the session on Sensors & Biosensors for Widespread Environmental Monitoring. The title of his talk is "Development of functional materials for the determination of Cr(VI) in an aqueous solution".

Our collaborative paper together with Dr. Mehdi Amouei Torkmahalleh; Dr. Tastanova and Dr. Bekeshev from K. Zhumabanov Aktobe University; Prof. Rule from Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; and Prof. Hopke from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA was published in Chemosphere entitled "Quantification and the sources identification of total and insoluble hexavalent chromium in ambient PM: A case study of Aktobe, Kazakhstan". 

To access the full paper, click this link.

Our collaborative paper together with Prof. Sang Hee Lee of Kunsan National University, Korea was published in ACS Applied Energy Materials entitled "Effect of π-spacer length in novel xanthene-linked L-(D−π–A)2-type dianchoring dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells" which studies the effect of thiophene π-spacer length in xanthene-linked L-(D−π–A)2-type dianchoring dye performance in DSSCs. The overall result showed that the presence of an extra thiophene unit in KS-21 led to the extension of conjugation, causing broadening and a red-shift of light absorption which in turn resulted in increased JSC and power conversion efficiency (PCE). 

To access the full paper, click this link.

Our collaborative paper with Dr. Annie Ng's group (SEDS) is already published in Nanomaterials (MDPI) with the title "A Morphological Study of Solvothermally Grown SnO2 Nanostructures for Application in Perovskite Solar Cells". This paper focuses on the morphological study of SnO2 nanostructures grown by a solvothermal method. The growth parameters including growth pressure, substrate orientation, DI water-to-ethanol ratios, types of seed layer, amount of acetic acid, and growth time have been systematically varied. To read the full paper click this link.

The Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan has awarded Dr. Bakhytzhan Baptayev a grant which is oriented toward young researchers from 2022 until 2024. The title of the approved grant is "Low-cost solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells - a new strategy of the development of the field".

Well done Dr. Baptayev and keep it up. 

Our 1st book chapter from Springer is out

Our book chapter entitled "Conjugated Polymers as Organic Electrodes for Photovoltaics" by Dr. Bakhytzhan Baptayev, Dr. Yerbolat Tashenov, and Dr. Mannix Balanay in the book Organic Electrodes: Fundamental to Advanced Emerging Applications edited by Prof. Ram Gupta from Pittsburg State University, USA is published under Springer, Cham Publications.

This chapter discusses the use of conjugated polymers as organic electrodes for photovoltaics. Conjugated polymers are very attractive due to their ability to form flexible substrates which can be applied either as an anode or a cathode depending on their configuration. Its properties can easily tuned via synthetic or post-synthetic treatment processes. In this chapter, an overview of the brief history is given to provide a background on the solar cell technology. The conjugated polymers are commonly observed in the third generation solar cells specifically in dye-sensitized, perovskite, and organic solar cells, which mostly utilizes it as counter electrodes. First, we briefly discuss the components, criteria, and representative conjugated polymers for dye-sensitized solar cells. Then followed by the composition, mechanism, and utilization of conjugated polymers in perovskite solar cells. Lastly, we introduce the basic configuration of an organic solar cells that uses conjugated polymers as both cathode and anode.

Click this link for more information about the book.

We invite you to attend the following Livestream:    

"Ph.D. in Chemistry in a changing world"

In this Livestream, you will have a chance to get detailed information about our new program, Ph.D. in Chemistry

from Associate Professor of Chemistry Department Mannix P. Balanay

Date: February 3, Thursday

Time: 8 PM (Nur-Sultan time)

Language: English

Invitation link: https://www.instagram.com/nuedukz/