Engineering a more resilient global energy system with nanoscience
By Sarah Fullerton
Developing sustainable energy alternatives is key to combating climate change and building a more resilient global energy system. Nayla Qureshi, a second-year Materials and Nanosciences co-op student at the University of Waterloo, is contributing to these solutions through hands-on research in innovative labs under the guidance of renowned faculty.
Working with professors Kevin Musselman (Faculty of Engineering) and Vivek Maheshwari (Faculty of Science), Qureshi has been involved in cutting-edge research in both labs, taking on two projects that use materials science to develop real-world sustainability solutions.
In Professor Musselman’s lab, Qureshi is conducting solar cell testing under extreme environmental conditions to design an automated performance setup. She has engineered a shadow mask to hold solar cells and developed a jig composed of a PCB and mask capable of running JV (current-voltage) sweeps on nine devices, each with eight electrodes.
“Testing conditions involved exposing the design to extreme environmental conditions, especially high temperatures and humidity,” she says. “However, to conduct measurements under these conditions I needed to find a way to protect the wires and the printed circuit board (PCB) through encapsulation.”
Qureshi compared two encapsulation techniques: potting compounds and conformal coatings. She tracked progress through a LabVIEW program that she re-coded from previous work. She built a simple program to measure one cell, tested and refined it, and then scaled it to support nine cell measurements
“My next steps are to design a stand and mount the solar simulator on the stand to align with the environmental chamber. Professor Musselman and his graduate students will then test the automated setup.”
In Professor Maheshwari’s lab, Qureshi is researching the production of green hydrogen. Her research involves photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, a method that directly uses sunlight to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. This process converts solar energy into chemical energy, offering a clean and sustainable way to produce hydrogen.
“My tasks on this project carried over well from what I learned in Professor Musselman’s lab in my first year,” she says. “I am synthesizing and testing catalysts and researching encapsulation methods for perovskite solar cells. The goal is to maximize solar-to-hydrogen efficiency and achieve over 100 hours of stable PEC performance.”
Beyond the lab, Qureshi is actively involved with the Materials and Nanoscience Society, serving as the club’s President. This year, she was recognized for her leadership, passion, and dedication to building a strong student community with theFaculty of Science Foundation G.F. Atkinson Citizenship Award, an honour recognizing students who make outstanding contributions to student life in the Faculty of Science at the University of Waterloo.
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