Dr. Tran Dinh Phong was born in 1981 in Hai Duong, Vietnam. He obtained his PhD degree at University Paris Sud-France in 2008 and Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) at University Grenoble Alpes-France in 2016. He worked as a postdoctoral research associate at CEA Grenoble in 2009-2010 and then as a senior research fellow at Energy Research Institute @ Nanyang Technological University- Singapore in 2011-2015. In 2018, he paid 2 semesters at Hanyang University-Korea as a visiting professor. He has joined University of Science and Technology of Hanoi (USTH) since 2015 as a lecturer and group leader. His current interests focus on the development of functional nanomaterials for energy conversion & storage and on the construction of artificial leaf for solar water splitting. He has published 50 papers and articles in international peer-reviewed journals. His works have been cited over 3500 times and his current H-index is 26.
Work
Phong D. Tran, Thu V. Tran, Maylis Orio, Stephane Torelli, Quang Duc Truong, Keiichiro Nayuki, Yoshikazu Sasaki, Sing Yang Chiam, Ren Yi, Itaru Honma, James Barber, Vincent Artero, 2016. Coordination polymer structure and revisited hydrogen evolution catalytic mechanism for amorphous molybdenum sulfide. Nature Materials, 15, 640-646
Solar-to-H2 fuel generation through the solar driven water splitting could be achieved by using a viable artificial leaf. The construction of a viable leaf requires efficient and robust light harvester, H2-evolving and O2-evolving catalysts that are made of earth abundant elements. Amorphous molybdenum sulfide is a promising alternative to replace platinum which is the most efficient and robust H2-evolving catalyst but less abundant on the earth`s crust. The amorphous molybdenum sulfide can be easily prepared by several chemical and physical methods. In this work, by employing an arsenal of microscopic, spectroscopic, electrochemical and chemical analyses, we clearly showed that the amorphous molybdenum sulfide was a coordination polymer made of [Mo3S13]2- building block cluster. We also demonstrated the H2-evolving mechanism relaying on the Mo-vacant defects. These findings provide important finger-prints to further improve the performance of amorphous molybdenum sulfide as well as to design novel efficient H2-evolving catalysts.