Sulfide-based Nanomaterials at Energy-Environment Nexus

The accelerating global demand for energy and rapid industrialization present pressing challenges to environmental sustainability and energy security. Developing advanced functional materials is crucial to addressing these challenges. Our research group explores the design and synthesis of inorganic materials that can contribute solutions in two critical areas: environmental remediation and energy storage. A central focus of our work is metal sulfides, which possess the remarkable ability to form both crystalline and amorphous frameworks. Their surface-exposed (poly)sulfide networks and strong Lewis acid–base interactions render them highly efficient and selective for capturing soft metallic and nonmetallic inorganic pollutants. This property makes them promising candidates for the treatment of wastewater and even complex legacy nuclear waste. In this seminar, I will discuss how these unique structural and electronic features of metal sulfides govern their performance in pollutant removal. In addition, I will highlight our efforts in energy storage research, where nanoscale meso- to microporous metal polysulfide-based materials, integrated with carbonaceous species, address the intrinsic limitations of conventional sulfur electrodes. Particular emphasis will be placed on the role of S–S bonds and their interactions with diverse metal cations, which, together with semiconductivity and amorphicity, enable the realization of high-energy-density, cycle-stable electrodes for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries.

Biography: Dr. Saiful M. Islam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Physics, and Atmospheric Sciences at Jackson State University, where he has served since 2017. He earned his B.Sc. (2004) and M.Sc. (2006) in Chemistry from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Bonn, Germany, in 2011. He pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Bonn and later at Northwestern University (2012–2017), where he also served as an adjunct faculty member.

Dr. Islam is a recipient of the prestigious DAAD fellowship for his doctoral studies, the U.S. Department of Energy Visiting Research Award (2018) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and was a visiting scientist at the Army Research Laboratory in 2019. Since joining Jackson State, he has secured multiple federal grants from the Department of Energy (EM, BES, EERE, VTO), National Science Foundation (CHE & DMR), Department of Defense, and Department of Education. His recognition includes the NSF Early CAREER Award, DOE-EERE HBCU Energy Education Champion Award, Jackson State’s 2024 Rising Star Award, and recognition as an Emerging Leader in Coordination Chemistry by the Journal of Coordination Chemistry (2022).

He actively contributes to the scientific community as an NSF DMR panelist and reviewer for DOE and NSF programs. He has also held leadership roles in the Mississippi Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Islam’s research focuses on advanced inorganic materials for electrochemical energy storage, wastewater remediation, and nuclear waste treatment. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers and holds one U.S. patent.