Professor Maria Forsyth

Professor Forsyth’s research in electromaterials science focuses on developing an understanding of charge transport at metal/electrolyte interfaces and within electrolyte materials including ionic liquids, polymer electrolytes and plastic crystals.

Using this understanding, she has collaborated very productively with the chemistry groups of MacFarlane, Junk and Deacon to design materials and processes to control these phenomena in two key areas – corrosion (eg Corrosion Science 2006, Surface and Coatings Technology, 2007) and electrochemical devices (Science, J Appl Electrochem, Adv Materials, J Power Sources). She has published more than 230 papers which have been cited > 3000 times to date current citation rate of ~700 citations per year.

In the field of corrosion mitigation, Professor Forsyth and her team have been at the forefront of developing and characterising new environmentally friendly methods to control charge transfer at reactive metal interfaces such as aluminium and magnesium. For example her group have pioneered the development of novel corrosion inhibitors based on rare earth metal-organic compounds and more recently the use of Ionic Liquid treatments. This work has led to a prestigious invitation to present a seminar at the Gordon Conference on Aqueous Corrosion as well as invited talks at the International Symposium of Electrochemistry (ISE-2004) and at the Australasian Corrosion Association conference (CPC-2007).

In the field of electrochemical devices, the group led by Professor Forsyth and Professor Macfarlane have pioneered the use of ionic liquids and plastic crystals in light metal batteries, fuel cells actuators and photoelectrochemical solar cells.

Professor Forsyth’s group has also developed unique multinuclear, variable temperature pulsed field gradient nmr facilities which has contributed to the elucidation of ion transport mechanisms in electrolyte materials and surfaces jphyschem.

She was recently successful in an EPSRC grant with Professor Mark Smith (PVC-R at Warwick University) to develop high resolution solid state NMR techniques to characterize interfacial films on reactive metals which will be relevant to the present proposal.

Selected Publications

Macfarlane, D.R.,  Forsyth, M.,Howlett P.C., Pringle J.M., Sun J., Annat G., Neil W. & Izgorodina E.I. (2007) Ionic liquids in electrochemical devices and processes: managing interfacial Electrochemistry. Accounts of Chemical Research  40(11) 1165-1173. 

Shekibi Y., Gray-Weale A., MacFarlane D.R., Hill  A.J. & Forsyth M. (2007) Nanoparticle enhanced conductivity in organic ionic plastic crystals: Space charge versus strain induced defect mechanism. Journal of Physical Chemistry  111 (30) 11463-11468.

Blin F., Leary S.G., Deacon G.B., Junk P.C. &  Forsyth M. (2006) The nature of the surface film on steel treated with cerium and lanthanum cinnamate based corrosion inhibitors. Corrosion Science  48 (2) 404-419.

Byrne N., Howlett P., MacFarlane D.R. & Forsyth M. (2005) The Zwitterion Effect in Ionic Liquids: Towards Practical Rechargeable Lithium-Metal Batteries, Advanced Materials (Weinheim, Germany)   17 (20) 2497-2501.