Dr. Peter Sherrell
Details
Department: School of Science
Campus: City Campus Australia
peter.sherrell@rmit.edu.au
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
About
Dr Peter C. Sherrell is a Senior Vice Chancellors Research Fellow in Applied Chemistry and Environmental Science within the STEM College.
Dr Peter C. Sherrell's research focusses on capturing and using ambient energy from the environment, to drive green and sustainable chemistries. In particular, Peter is working on developing new methods of harvesting motion and heat from chemical and electrochemical processes, to enable highly efficient catalysis. He is broadly interested in understanding materials structure-property-performance relationships, and unlocking the fundamental mechanisms behind emerging energy devices - and using these mechanistic understanding to engineer more efficient energy storage, conversion, and harvesting systems.
Before joining RMIT University, Peter was an Elizabeth & Vernon Puzey Fellow at the University of Melbourne (2019-2023); a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at Imperial College London, UK (2015-2018), and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Linkoping University, Sweden (2013-2015).
Recent Awards:
2026: NIDG funding "ID260100109", "Piezoelectric Gels for Battery-Free Wearable Biometric Monitoring and Covert Data Collection" ($799k)
2026: RMIT School of Science HDR Supervision Award "presented to the HDR supervisor who has provided outstanding support and guidance to their candidates within the School in 2025" (Awarded June 2026)
2026: RMIT Strategic Impact Fund "Capture: Reimaginging CO2 removal together" ($20k)
2025: ARC Discovery Project "DP250100971", "Acousto-Electrocatalysis: A New Frontier in Electrochemistry." ($453k)
Industry experience:
Peter's research has been supported and engaged with various industries throughout my career, in reverse chronological order he has worked with;
2020 – 2024 Future Battery Industries CRC 'Super-Anode' Project
2019 – 2020 The Reserve Bank of Australia (ARC LP)
2015 – 2018 EVOQUA Water Technologies (EPSRC EP/M022250/1)
2015 – 2018 Hyflux (EPSRC EP/M022250/1)
2013 – 2015 LinkoCare (spin out company)
2011 – 2012 SMR Automotive (ARC LP)
Research fields
- 401807 Nanomaterials
- 401609 Polymers and plastics
- 340601 Catalysis and mechanisms of reactions
- 400404 Electrochemical energy storage and conversion
UN sustainable development goals
- 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
- 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
Academic positions
- Honorary Senior Fellow
- University of Melbourne
- School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
- Melbourne, Australia
- 2023 – Present
- Associate Investigator
- ARC Centre of Excellence of Enabling Eco-Efficient Beneficiation of Minerals
- Australia
- 2021 – Present
Supervisor projects
- Internally Electrified Materials
- 2 Jun 2026
- Electrochemical study of hybrid supercapacitors using graphene-based materials derived from different carbon precursors
- 27 Apr 2026
- Atomic-Level Insights into Lithium-Ion Intercalation in Silicon-Based Anodes: Simulations and Experiments of Composite Materials and Alloys for Enhanced Energy Storage Performance
- 2 Apr 2026
- Materials for (photo)electrochemical applications
- 27 Mar 2026
- FastCharge: Enabling High Rate Capacity Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices
- 11 Dec 2025
- Flexible all-solid state asymmetric hybrid supercapacitor integrated with motion harvester in an all-in-one system for wearable applications
- 21 Sep 2025
- Ambient Energy Harvesting towards Sustainable Chemistry
- 14 Jan 2025
- Synthesis of metal ferrite thin films for photoelectrochemical water oxidation
- 11 Nov 2024
- Creation of New Thermoelectric Porous Materials and Systems
- 19 Dec 2023
- Ambient Energy Harvesting towards Sustainable Chemistry
- 27 Nov 2023
- High-Frequency Acoustics for Piezoelectric and Triboelectric Polymer Synthesis
- 3 Oct 2023
- Engineering TiO2:La3+ Thin Films as A Platform Technology for Integration with Active Antimicrobial Applications
- 20 Sep 2023
- Doped Hematite Thin Films for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting
- 14 Aug 2023
- Engineering the Interface: Antibacterial Combined Approach to Implant Surface Modification
- 14 Jul 2023
Teaching interests
For Research Supervision I focus on:
Materials Chemistry - 2D Materials & Semiconductors; Polymers; Ferroelectric Materials
Energy Conversion - Piezoelecticity; Contact Electrification; Flexoelectricity; Thermoelectricity
Electrochemistry - Electrocatalysis; Mechanocatalysis; Alkali Ion Batteries; Supercapacitors
For available projects, search "Sherrell" at https://www.rmit.edu.au/research/research-degrees/find-a-project
For recent outputs, please see the "Publications" tab at the top of the page
Research interests
Energy Conversion - Piezoelecticity; Contact Electrification; Flexoelectricity; Thermoelectricity
Electrochemistry - Electrocatalysis; Mechanocatalysis; Alkali Ion Batteries; Supercapacitors
For available projects, search "Sherrell" at https://www.rmit.edu.au/research/research-degrees/find-a-project
For recent outputs, please see the "Publications" tab at the top of the page
