McGill.CA / Materials Engineering / Personnes

Research Interests


George Demopoulos' Research Group September 2022
From left/front row: Rana Yekani, PhD; Joon Kyung Joon, MSc;
Second row: Moohyun Woo, PhD; Senhao Wang, PhD; Han Wang, PhD; Arian Norouzi, PhD, Fan Yu, PhD; Aristya Marzuki, MEng. Not in the photo: Francois Larouche, PhD, Krystal Davis, MSc, and Andrea La Monaca, PDF.

VIDEO LINK: MSSI Materials Research Program Presentation, November 2018.
VIDEO LINK: "Professor Demopoulos interviewed by the Canada Science & Technology Museum” (Fall 2017).

Professor Demopoulos is co-founder and Associate Director of the new McGill Centre for Innovation in Storage & Conversion of Energy (McISCE): www.mcgill.ca/mcisce

Our HydroMET-Hydrothermal Materials for Environmental and Energy Technologies Laboratory conducts research in the following areas:

  • Aqueous processing of inorganic materials
  • Electrodes, solid electrolytes and photocatalysts
  • Electrolytic and electrophoretic deposition
  • Solution synthesis and processing of energy nanomaterials and mesoporous electrodes
  • Cells for solar energy conversion (DSCs, Perovskite, and CZTS) and storage (LIB-Li-ion batteries)
  • Aqueous precipitation and crystallization
  • Unit operations in hydrometallurgy
  • Clean environmental technologies

Group and Current Projects

  • Philip Gamboa, MSc, Aqueous electrolytic conversion of iron oxides to metallic iron
  • Aristya Marzuki, MEng (project), Crystallization of nickel hydroxide (co-supervised with P. Ouzilleau)
  • Krystal Davis, MSc, Direct recycling and regeneration of spent NMC cathodes
  • Joon Koong, MSc, Synthesis and core-shell coating of Ni-rich cathode materials
  • Arian Norouzi, PhD, Direct recovery of metallic iron from iron ore via low temperature alkaline electrolysis (co-supervised with K. Waters)
  • Senhao Wang, PhD, Solid-state (garnet) electrolyte interfaces
  • Fan Yu, PhD, Monocrystalline TiNb2O7 and application to solid-state batteries
  • Moohyun Woo, PhD, High-voltage cathode materials
  • Rana Yekani, PhD, Perovskite solar cells
  • Francois Larouche, PhD, Recycling of lithium iron phosphate batteries
  • Han Wang, PhD, Thin film CZTS solar cells (co-supervised with N. Quitoriano)
  • Dr. Andrea La Monaca, PDF, Development of Li-ion battery materials and hydrogen photocatalysts

Recent PhD completed projects

  • Konstantina Chalastara, PhD 2022, Synthesis and application of nano-TiO2/ZVI composites for detoxification of waste waters; recipient of the 2021 MetSoc Gordon Ritcey Doctoral Award in Hydrometallurgy (MEDA Award recipient; 1st Place Award for Materials Chemistry Oral Presentation awarded at the 29th Can. Materials Sci. Conf., Ottawa, June 2017) (now Process Engineer with Hatch).
  • Huijing Wei, PhD 2021, Organic-assisted hydrothermal synthesis and electrochemical evaluation of monoclinic lithium metal silicate cathode materials (now Researcher with ORA Graphene)).
  • Majid Rasool, PhD 2020, Electrochemistry of orthorhombic metal lithium silicate cathodes (MEDA award recipient) (now PDF in University of Calgary)
  • Marianna Uceda, PhD 2020, Electrophoretic fabrication of Li-ion battery electrodes (MEDA Award recipient) (now PDF, Univ. Waterloo)
  • Yan (Helen) Zeng, PhD 2019, Hydrothermal synthesis of metal silicate cathode materials; recipient of the 2019 MetSoc Gordon Ritcey Doctoral Award in Hydrometallurgy and the Gold Medal of the Department for Research Excellence (now Staff scientist in Livermore Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, California)

Recent Articles in Refereed Journals

(My students and PDFs’ names are in bold; names with * are those of collaborators)

  1. François Larouche, Frederick Voisard, Kamyab Amouzegar*, Georges Houlachi, Patrick Bouchard, Ashok Vijh, G. P. Demopoulos., Kinetics, mechanism and optimization modeling of a green LFP delithiation process developed for direct recycling of lithium-ion batteries, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2023, 62, 2, 903–915
  2. Rana Yekani, Hsien-chieh Chiu, Dallas Strandell, Zhuoran Wang*, Stéphanie Bessette,

Raynald Gauvin*, Patanjali Kambhampati*, George P. Demopoulos, 2023, Hysteresis Dynamics and Inductance Effects in Hybrid Perovskite Solar Cells: Establishing the dependency on ETL/Perovskite Interface, Nanoscale, 2023, DOI: 10.1039/D2NR05836G

  1. Aude Bechu, Krittika Mittal, Ke Xu, Rana Yekani, George P. Demopoulos, Audrey Moores*, Niladri Basu*, 2022, Helping incorporate safe and sustainability into materials research: A checklist tool designed for early career researchers, ACS Sust. Chem. & Engineering 2022, 10, 45, 14658–14664
  2. Sonia D. Fereira-Rocha*, Lydia Katsarou and G.P. Demopoulos, 2022, Enhanced stability of scorodite in oxic and anoxic systems via surface coating with hdroxyapatite and fluoroapatite, Minerals 2022, 12, 1014. https://doi.org/10.3390/min12081014
  3. K. Chalastara and G.P. Demopoulos, 2022, Mechanism of galvanic reduction of selenate oxyanions and surface immobilization by nano Zero-Valent Iron aggregates under anaerobic condition: towards high electron efficiency, Environmental Science: Water Res. & Techn. 2022, 8, 1910 – 1922.
  4. François Larouche, Kamyab Amouzegar*, Georges Houlachi, Patrick Bouchard, G. P. Demopoulos,, 2022, Conversion of LiFePO4 to FePO4 via selective lithium bicarbonation – A direct pathway towards battery recycling, J. ECS 169, 073509
  5. Isaías Zeferino González, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Raynald Gauvin*, George P. Demopoulos, Mario Miki-Yoshida, Ana María Valenzuela-Muñiz, J. Ysmael Verde Gomez*, 2022, Graphene nanobuds as a novel anode design paradigm with superior Li-ion storage capacity and rate capability, Carbon 199 (2022) 486–496
  6. K. Chalastara and G.P. Demopoulos, 2022, Selenate reduction on heterojunctioned rutile/brookite nano-photocatalysts with enhanced charge utilization, Chem. Eng. J 437 (2022) 135470.
  7. Isaías Zeferino González, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Raynald Gauvin*, George P. Demopoulos, Mario Miki-Yoshida, Ana María Valenzuela-Muñiz, J. Ysmael Verde Gomez*, Silicon-doped carbon nanotubes as high energy anode for lithium-ion batteries, Materials Today Communications, 30 (2022) 103158.
  8. Mariana Llanos; Rana Yekani; George P. Demopoulos, Niladri Basu*, 2020, Alternatives Assessment of Perovskite Solar Cell Materials and their Methods of Fabrication, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, 133 (2020) 110207.
  9. Majid Rasool, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Benjamin Zank, Yan Zeng, Jigang Zhou*, Karim Zaghib*, Dmitrii F. Perepichka*, and George P. Demopoulos., PEDOT encapsulated and mechanochemically engineered silicate nanocrystal cathodes, Adv. Mat. Interfaces, 2020, 2000226.
  10. Marianna Uceda, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Jigang Zhou*, Raynald Gauvin*, Karim Zaghib* and George P. Demopoulos., Nanoscale Assembling of GO Leads to Superior Percolation Network in TiNb2O7/rGO Anodes, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 23092–23104.
  11. Francois Larouche, Farouk Tedjar, Kamyab Amouzegar, Georges Houlachi, Patrick Bouchard, George P. Demopoulos, Karim Zaghib*, 2020, Progress and status of hydrometallurgical and direct recycling of Li-ion batteries and beyond, Materials, 2020, 13, 801
  12. Marianna Uceda, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Raynald Gauvin*, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, Electrophoretically co-deposited Li4Ti5O12/redGO nanolayered composites Energy Storage Materials, 26 (2020) 560-569.
  13. Yan Zeng, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Bin Ouyang, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, Defect Engineering of Fe-Rich Orthosilicate Cathode Materials ACS Applied Energy Materials, 2020, 3, 675−686
  14. Konstantina Chalastara, F. Guo, G. P. Demopoulos, Tunable composition mixed-phase TiO2 nanocrystals for photo-assisted water decontamination: Catalysts, 2020, 10, 407.
  15. Zhuoran Wanag, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Andrea Paolella*, Raynald Gauvin*, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, A Sustainable Light-Chargeable Energy Storage System based on Na-Ion Photo-Intercalation", Sust. Ener. & Fuels, 2020, 4, 4789 – 4799.
  16. Majid Rasool, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Raynald Gauvin*, De-Tong Jiang*, Jigang Zhou*, Dominic Ryan*, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, 2020, Unusual Li-ion intercalation activation with stepwise capacity increase in orthosilicates, J. Phys. Chem. C 2020, 124, 5966−5977.
  17. Majid Rasool, Xia Lu, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Frédéric Voisard, Raynald Gauvin*, De-Tong Jiang*, Andrea Paolella, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, 2019, Mechanochemically-tuned structural annealing: a new pathway to enhancing Li-ion activity in βII Li2FeSiO4, J Mater. Chem. A. 2019, 7, 13705 – 13713
  18. Zhuoran Wang, Hsien-Chieh Chiu; Andrea Paolella; Karim Zaghib*; George P Demopoulos, 2019, Lithium Photo-Intercalation of CdS-Sensitized WO3 Anode for Energy Storage and Photoelectrochromic Applications, ChemSusChem, 2019, 12, 1 – 12.
  19. Yan Zeng, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Bin Ouyang, Jun Song, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos Unveiling the mechanism of improved capacity retention in Pmn21 Li2FeSiO4 cathode by cobalt substitution, J. Materials Chem. A 2019, 7, 25399 – 25414.
  20. Han Wang, Amrita Yasin, Nathaniel J. Quitoriano*, and George P. Demopoulos, 2019, Aqueous-based Binary Sulfide Nanoparticle Inks for Cu2ZnSnS4 Thin Films Stabilized with Tin(IV) Chalcogenide Complexes, Nanomaterials, 9, 1382; doi:10.3390/nano9101382
  21. Z. Wang, N. Brodusch, R. Gauvin*, G.P. Demopoulos, 2019, New Insights into Sulfurized and Selenized Kesterite-Titania Nanostructures for CdS-free and HTM-free Photovoltaic and Voltage-Modulated Photodetecting Applications", ACS Sust. Chem. Eng. 7, 15093−15101.
  22. Fuqiang Guo, Qiankun Wang, George P. Demopoulos, 2019, Kinetics of Iron(III)-Catalyzed Oxidation of Arsenic(III) in Acidic Solutions with SO2/O2 Gas Mixture Using Different Iron Sources, Hydrometallurgy, 189, 105130.
  23. Marianna Uceda, Jigang Zhou*, Jian Wang, R. Gauvin*, Karim Zaghib*, and G. P. Demopoulos, 2019, Highly Conductive NMP-free Carbon-Coated Nano-Lithium Titanate/Carbon Composite Electrodes via SBR-Assisted Electrophoretic Deposition, Electrochimica Acta, 299, 107-115.
  24. Yan Zeng, Hsien-Chieh Chiu, Majid Rasool, Nicolas Brodusch, Raynald Gauvin*, De-Tong Jiang*, Dominic Ryan*, Karim Zaghib*, and George P. Demopoulos, 2019, Hydrothermal Crystallization of Pmn21 Li2FeSiO4 Hollow Mesocrystals for Li-Ion Cathode Application, Chem. Eng. J., 359, 1592-1602.
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