Conferenza From Waste to Value: Electrochemical and Photoelectrochemical Approaches for a Sustainable Future

Prof. Francesca M. Toma is Director of the Institute of Functional Materials for Sustainability at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon and Distinguished Helmholtz Professor at Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg. Her research focuses on sustainable materials for renewable energy, with particular emphasis on electrochemistry, photoelectrochemistry, catalysis, and circular approaches to materials and fuels.

In this seminar, Prof. Toma will discuss how electrochemical and photoelectrochemical platforms can convert simple feedstocks into valuable chemicals and fuels using renewable electricity or sunlight. The talk will also address how circularity and resource efficiency can be integrated directly into materials and device design, including approaches related to biomass-derived byproducts such as lignin and fermentation-based chemical production.

The seminar is jointly promoted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy “A. Righi” and the Department of Chemistry “Giacomo Ciamician”.