Truls Eivind Norby

Applied and academic fields of interest

Truls Eivind Norby works with materials chemistry and technologies for energy conversion, renewable energy, carbon capture, hydrogen, hydrogen-based green energy carriers like ammonia, solar fuels, and air purification.

Scientifically, he works with defects and defect-related properties in functional ceramic materials at high temperatures. This comprises defect chemistry and its thermodynamics, diffusion and mobility of defects, conductivity and permeability, kinetics, electrocatalysis, and photoelectrochemistry.

A specialty is protons in oxides, and he is currently interested also in neutral hydrogen species and hydride ions in oxidic environments. He studies and develops proton conductors, oxide ion conductors, electronic conductors, and mixed conductors for high temperature fuel cells and electrolysers, sensors, and dense, inorganic gas separation membranes for separation of oxygen, hydrogen, and CO2 (for CCS). He also engages in studies of fundamental processes involved in the degradation of such materials.

The Group for Electrochemistry works in the emerging field of nano-ionics, taking tools and concepts from nano-technology into use to understand and develop the properties of nano-dimensional structures; surfaces, electrodes, interfaces (phase, grain, and domain boundaries), nano-cages, and nano-particles. In particular he studies presently protonic transport in nanoporous ceramics, the effect of space charge on defects and transport in and across interfaces, and oxide nanotubes as photoelectrodes.

Another interest is oxide thermoelectrics-a great opportunity for crossdisciplinary research with physicists. He is interested in thermoelectric properties and stability of materials and oxide-oxide heterojunctions at high temperatures.

He combines experimental studies with DFT-based and other theoretical modelling.