Debbie Silvester is a British-Australian chemist who is a professor at

Curtin University Curtin University, formerly known as Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT), is an Australian public research university based in Bentley, Perth, Western Australia. It is named after John Curtin, ...

. Her research considers electrochemical processes and sensing. She has explored

room-temperature ionic liquid An ionic liquid (IL) is a salt in the liquid state. In some contexts, the term has been restricted to salts whose melting point is below a specific temperature, such as . While ordinary liquids such as water and gasoline are predominantly made of ...

s. In 2021, she was awarded the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

Le Fèvre Medal.

Early life and education

Silvester was born in Essex in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. She was an undergraduate student at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, where she earned a master's degree in 2005. She competed her third year project with Royce W. Murray at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

, USA. She moved to the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

for graduate studies, where she studied room temperature ionic liquids using electrochemistry. Her doctoral research was supervised by

Richard G. Compton Richard Guy Compton FRSC MAE (born 10 March 1955 in Scunthorpe, UK) is Professor of Chemistry and Aldrichian Praelector at Oxford University, United Kingdom. He is a Tutorial Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford and has a large research group ...

. After a two-month internship

Schlumberger Schlumberger Limited (), doing business as SLB, is an oilfield services company. Schlumberger has four principal executive offices located in Paris, Houston, London, and The Hague. Schlumberger is the world's largest offshore drilling compa ...

Cambridge Research Centre, Silvester joined

as a postdoctoral scholar.

Research and career

Silvester has studied the electrochemical behaviour of

s, which can be used to sense toxic gases and explosives. The electrochemical interactions of ionic liquids can be used to detect gases such as ammonia and chlorine. Silvester has shown that ionic liquids that contain

hexafluorophosphate Hexafluorophosphate is an anion with chemical formula of . It is an octahedral species that imparts no color to its salts. is isoelectronic with sulfur hexafluoride, , and the hexafluorosilicate dianion, , and hexafluoroantimonate . In this anio ...

ions cannot detect

hydrogen chloride The compound hydrogen chloride has the chemical formula and as such is a hydrogen halide. At room temperature, it is a colourless gas, which forms white fumes of hydrochloric acid upon contact with atmospheric water vapor. Hydrogen chloride ga ...

because they form

hydrogen fluoride Hydrogen fluoride (fluorane) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . This colorless gas or liquid is the principal industrial source of fluorine, often as an aqueous solution called hydrofluoric acid. It is an important feedstock i ...

. Redox active explosive compounds including

TNT Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagen ...

can be detected using electrochemistry by monitoring the reduction of the

nitro group In organic chemistry, nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (). The nitro group is one of the most common explosophores (functional group that makes a compound explosive) used globally. The nitr ...

s. She showed that the reaction mechanisms are different in ionic liquids to how they behave in water. In ionic liquids, the nitro groups undergo a 1 electron reduction, whilst in water they undergo a 6 electron reduction at every nitro group. Owing to their large sizes and complexities of miniaturisation, electrochemical cells are inappropriate for real-world sensing applications. Silvester developed a variety of device architectures with planar electrodes, including screen printed, thin film and microarray thin film electrodes. To enhance the sensitivity of the devices, Silvester has proposed surface-modified electrodes (including platinum nanoparticles and electrodeposited porous nanostructures). This patterning improves the radial diffusion, allowing for sub ppm gas sensing. Silvester showed that by combining her ionic liquids with

poly(methyl methacrylate) Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) belongs to a group of materials called engineering plastics. It is a transparent thermoplastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and brands Crylux, Plexiglas, Acrylite, ...

it was possible to form a gel-like material that can remain stable in various orientations, making the devices much more robust and adaptable to the demands of gas sensing. Ionic liquid - PMMA blends can be used for the long term detection of high oxygen concentrations. Her room-temperature ionic liquids can also permit the detection of ions in water with high levels of sensitivity. She believes that this occurs due to void-assisted pairing between the protons within the ions of the water with the anions of the room-temperature ionic liquids. Beyond ionic liquids, Silvester has developed mesoporous materials for

hydrogen storage Hydrogen storage can be accomplished by several existing methods of holding hydrogen for later use. These include mechanical approaches such as using high pressures and low temperatures, or employing chemical compounds that release H2 upon demand ...

Awards and honours

* 2013

Royal Australian Chemical Institute The Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) is both the qualifying body in Australia for professional chemists and a learned society promoting the science and practice of chemistry in all its branches. The RACI hosts conferences, seminars and ...

electrochemistry division Alan M Bond Medal * 2017

analytical & environmental division Peter W Alexander Medal * 2019

Australian Institute of Policy and Science The Australian Institute of Policy and Science (AIPS) is an Australian non-partisan and non-profit organisation that aims to further public understanding of the public policy and science in Australia. Founded in 1932 as the Australian Institute of ...

WA Young Tall Poppy Award * 2019

Rennie Memorial Medal * 2020 Analytical Scientist Power List * 2020 Elected Fellow of the

* 2021

Le Fèvre Medal * 2021

Physical Chemistry Lectureship * 2021 Women in Technology WA Awards: Tech 20 winner, Outstanding STEM Educator and First Among Equals winner. * 2021

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

Analyst Emerging Investigator Lectureship * 2022

International Society of Electrochemistry The International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) is a global scientific society founded in 1949. The Head Office of ISE is located now in Lausanne, Switzerland. ISE is a Member Organization of IUPAC. The Society has now more than 1900 Individual ...

Tajima Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silvester, Debbie Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British women chemists Australian women chemists Academic staff of Curtin University Alumni of the University of Bristol Alumni of the University of Oxford