My name is Joka Buha. I am a materials scientist with PhD from the University of New South Walles (UNSW) in Sydney. Prior to coming to Italy where I now work, I was a JSPS Fellow at National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the School of Renewable Energy and Engineering, UNSW. Initially I specialized in lightweight metallic alloys and high-resolution and analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Since PhD, my research has included very diverse areas, going from third generation photovoltaics and photocatalysts, over to colloidal synthesis of a range of nanomaterials and their characterization by in-situ TEM and other techniques, finally arriving to graphene and other 2D materials. Within BeDimensional I am responsible for all of the research and reporting aspects of the 2D-PRINTABLE project. Our work is done closely with EPFL, who perform large scale computational screening of the novel 2D materials, and with VSCHT who are uniquely placed to produce a very wide variety of bulk 2D materials, most of which have never been subjected to any kind of exfoliation processing before. We are then developing exfoliation processes for these novel materials and performing their characterization. We are also developing inks based on these novel materials, performing printing trials and basic electrochemical characterization of the printed films.
What was your original motivation to become a researcher?
My early childhood curiosity and passion for learning, wanting to understand how things in nature work, what are they made of, poking, testing, probing and applying what I learnt in creative play have naturally led me to become researcher many years later. Though my initial training was in engineering disciplines, I am glad that over the years and by circumstances within and beyond my control I was nudged out of this comfort zone and took upon learning a lot from other science disciplines and I continue to do so now also within 2D-PRINTABLE.
What is your (main) research area today?
My main research area currently is the development and optimization of exfoliation processes for a large number of novel 2D materials, which is closely linked with detailed characterization of these materials and development of their future applications together with other project partners.
What is the main objective of your team in 2D-PRINTABLE?
BeDimensional is primarily responsible for producing a large number of novel 2D materials including insulating, semiconductive and conductive materials by means of liquid phase exfoliation. We are also responsible for providing their full characterization so that we and other partners can put these materials to use by developing ready-to-use inks for printing. We are predominantly using sonication-assisted liquid phase exfoliation and have already demonstrated ability to exfoliate novel materials using a technology for industrial scale production of 2D nanosheets, namely the wet jet milling. Likewise, other project partners are targeting other novel 2D materials using their capabilities and expertise in chemical and electrochemical exfoliation.
What expertise and facilities does your team have to meet those objectives?
Our labs are fully equipped for both lab and industrial scale liquid phase exfoliation production of different 2D materials and their characterization, which supports research activities, but also provides quality control of industrially produced materials according to international standards. In house and in joint agreement with the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) we are able to access a range of characterization facilities (TEM, SEM, AFM, XRD, XPS, Raman Spectroscopy, TGA, DCS, UV-Vis spectroscopy etc.), perform chemical functionalization experiments in air and in a glove box, perform printing by different techniques (spray coating, spin coasting and blade coating), fabricate electrodes and perform electrochemical characterization on newly produced 2D nanosheets, etc. Finally, BeDimensional has liquid phase exfoliation capabilities to produce most of the novel 2D materials on a scale of > 1 ton per year.
Which aspects of your research at 2D-PRINTABLE do you believe are the most innovative and what unique opportunities offer 2D-PRINTABLE to yourself and/or your organisation?
With 2D-PRINTABLE we are facing a tall task of producing high-quality, functional and printable 2D nanosheets out of materials that have never been exfoliated before and some never even produced in any low-dimensional from by any other technique before. Into this innovation landscape BeDimensional also brings the experience and expertise needed to take a new material out of lab, into industrial production and onto market. As former, or in part still academics, we are familiar with challenges that this transition presents and equipped with skills needed to overcome those.
How do you see the future use of the 2D-PRINTABLE results and the impact of 2D-PRINTABLE project in our daily lives?
2D-PRINTABLE ambitiously seeks to introduce a large number of materials never produced in 2D nanosheet form before, which in turn opens doors to countless possibilities for their application depending on their newly discovered properties. We are working towards this goal by developing processes that are industrially scalable, sustainable and economically feasible already from the very beginning of the project. We are likely therefore to see the impact of this project on future optoelectronics, sensors, composites, energy and information storage devices, to name just a few.
