The laboratory of Prof. Troian-Gautier was established in October 2022 an is located within the “Institut de la Matière Condensée et des Nanosciences” (IMCN) at UCLouvain. The laboratory where the group is located was fully renovated in 2014 and possesses state of the art equipment for synthesis and access to glovebox and flash purification system within the building.
The laboratory of Prof. Troian-Gautier is equipped with UV-Vis spectrophotometers, one TCSPC for emission spectra and lifetime measurements, cyclic voltammetry and two spectroelectrochemical setup (one OTTLE cell and one system from MetrOhm). In december 2023 the laboratory acquired a time-resolved IR setup (In collaboration with Prof. Benjamin Elias) that allows to monitor changes in IR signals upon illumination at 355 or 532 nm, over a range spanning 5 ns to the millisecond timescale. In addition, the laboratory is equipped with two muffle oven and one tube furnace that are used for the synthesis of metal oxide pastes and the fabrication of photoelectrodes. The laboratory is also equipped with several irradiation setup (LED, Xenon lamps, etc).
Through a very active collaboration with the group of Prof. Benjamin Elias, our laboratory has also access to UV-Visible nanosecond transient absorption spectroscopy.
There is access to techniques gathered in the “Institut de la Matière Condensée et des Nanosciences” (IMCN), such as 400 MHz and 600 MHz 1H NMR spectroscopy, high resolution mass spectrometry, FTIR spectrometer, X-ray spectrometer, analytical and semi-preparative HPLC.In addition to these readily available equipment, UCLouvain has developed several research platforms that will enable me to characterize each part of these dye-sensitized photoelectrodes. These research platforms are: Molecular Structural Analysis (ASM), Microscopic ChAracterization of Functional and nanostructured materials (MICA) and Surface Characterisation (SUCH).