Join Us

To join our group

We welcome international students with diverse backgrounds. We consider accepting eligible persons who have a passion and a potential ability for conducting bachelor, master, or PhD level research to solve energy and environmental problems relevant to the pursuit of carbon neutrality. We are exploring next-generation materials and systems that can address the present and future energy and environmental issues.
Lab introduction slide_Aug.2023

Undergraduate students in 3rd or 4th year of Dept. of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering (融合理工学系) in Tokyo Tech can join our lab. For graduate school level (master and PhD), persons presently inside and outside Tokyo Tech who apply to the Graduate Major of Global Engineering for Development, Environment and Society Course (地球環境共創コース), Mechanical Engineering Course (機械系機械コース), or Nuclear Engineering Course (融合理工学系原子核工学コース) can join our group.

For those presently outside Japan, please consider application through International Graduate Program (IGP). This program consists of IGP(A), (B), and (C). While any of these are possible, IGP(C) is the broadest route through which we have accepted students from outside Japan so far. Please be noted that before your application to the graduate course, you have to first contact Prof. Murakami and ask him for a preliminary interview, which mostly takes place online. If you have questions, please feel to contact him by e-mail.

Philosophy of this laboratory

Effective use of energies and the establishment of CO2 emission control and recovery technologies are urgent issues that determine the future of humankind and the civilization. These problems are macro-global issues that the international community as well as various sectors of the society should work together to cope with. As one aspect of this, we have already entered an era in which investment and management decisions by industries, policy decisions by governments, and allocation of public funds are judged based on measures of CO2 emission reduction and effective use of energy. Taking advantage of the university’s degree of freedom, recognizing the mission of university, this laboratory takes on the challenge of pioneering unexplored areas in environmental and energy technology. We aim to become the world’s best engineering laboratory and conduct challenging research and development that the society expects towards universities. We aim to be the best engineering lab in the world, and we are conducting challenging research-and-development that society demands of universities to solve the above problems.

The philosophy of this laboratory is to “promote the wealth and well-being of society through the development of unexplored areas of science and technology, and nurture highly capable next-generation human resources.”

Our laboratory is accepting people who want to develop their own abilities in bachelor's, master's and PhD degree programs through cutting-edge research and development aimed at social implementation; your background so far and what department you are presently in do not matter. Our laboratory may accept (i) 3rd and 4th year students in Dept. of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering of Tokyo Tech, (ii) students currently in an undergraduate course or a master course of other universities, and (iii) those who are working for a company and wishing to obtain a Ph.D. degree. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Murakami (murakami.y.af@m.titech.ac.jp). Visitors and questions are welcomed at any time throughout the year.

Research themes

For research, we mainly use experiments and measurements together with numerical calculations (quantum chemical calculation: Gaussian, thermo-fluid simulation: Fluent); all students are involved in experiments and about half of them also use numerical simulation. When considering your application, you do not need to be bound by your previous/present experience or field of study. Our laboratory has strong communication between students and professor, and between seniors and juniors; we provide students with advice on textbooks, papers, and techniques to be learned at each stage so that they can grow at their own pace. Presently, you can choose your theme from the projects below.

• Development of next-generation solid CO2 adsorbents that achieve low thermal energy consumption
• Development of innovative all-solid-state battery materials that achieve ultrahigh ion conductance
• Development of technology to utilize waste thermal energy (thermoelectrochemical cells, forced-flow thermocells)
• Development of materials that convert unused solar energy into usable wavelengths (photon upconversion)

These themes are the result of our continuous creation of new fields by fusing various academic fields.

Atmosphere and policy of the lab

Our lab has good communication between the professor and students as well as between young and senior students. The lab environment is bright and airy. We use e-mail for external communication and Slack and BOX for internal communication to allow for an efficient and comfortable communication environment. The student rooms are clean, bright and comfortable, and the environment is convenient as it is located near two stations (see our location); students in our lab are gentle people, who take good care of their juniors.

In this lab, each person works on his/her own research theme. As a policy of this laboratory, we aim to foster students’ spontaneous actions and thoughts, and to let them acquire effective R&D skills (experiment, analysis, calculations, etc.) and learn how to construct logic, through the world’s first-class research activities. These will surely be important elements that will help you in the future.

Presentations at conferences and lab meetings

Our lab is active in making presentations at academic conferences. That is, regardless of the year-grade, if one obtains meaningful results, he/she is encouraged and supported to make a presentation at an academic conference. In addition, it is also possible for students to publish the results in a peer-reviewed paper as a first author; in that case, writing guidance will be provided by Prof. Murakami, who has extensive experience of writing papers. Through such experiences, our students can develop presentation and writing skills.

A lab meeting for progress presentation and discussion is held every Friday afternoon; the members are divided into two groups and each group make presentation in every two weeks. Through the meeting, students can learn from other people who work on different themes, acquire new knowledge, and enhance your presentation skills.