This session was made possible thanks to a special partnership with GlobalH2E
Topic: Challenges and Opportunities for Green Hydrogen Production from Water Electrolysis
Hydrogen holds the promise as a green energy carrier for global scale storage of renewable energy, e.g., solar and wind, enabling the continuous usage of these diffusive and intermittent energy sources when used together with hydrogen fuel cells. Water electrolyser is a cornerstone technology for the hydrogen economy, which requires highly efficient, low-cost, and robust catalyst materials to reduce its current energy consumption and cost. However, there is currently a gap between lab-scale research and industrial-scale water electrolysis, due to catalysts, cell design, and operating conditions challenges.
This talk highlights the current challenges and opportunities for water electrolysis from a material perspective and showcases the Zhao’s group efforts in developing electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution and hydrogen evolution reactions in alkaline and acid electrolytes, as well as our operando investigations of the catalytic processes and the gas bubble behaviours. The commercialisation of some of the Zhao’s group work for the water electrolyser industry also will be introduced to highlight the significance of material design from atomic to macroscopic to industrial scale.
Presenters: Prof Chuan Zhao, Professor of Chemistry for Clean Energy and Sustainability, University of New South Whales
Prof Chuan Zhao is a Professor at the School of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Head of UNSW Nanoelectrochemistry Lab. Prof Zhao received his PhD in 2002 with an excellence award from Northwest University, then completed postdoctoral research at University of Oldenburg and Monash University, before starting his independent career in UNSW in 2010. He is currently the Deputy Director and Theme Leader for hydrogen production in the ARC Training Centre for the Global Hydrogen Economy, as well as Deputy Research Director, Flagship Program Director and the Sydney Node Director in the ARC Centre of Excellence on Green Electrochemical Transformation of Carbon Dioxide. Prof Zhao received numerous awards including recently the R.H. Stokes Medal, the most distinguished award for Australian electrochemists. He is the elected Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), Fellow of RACI (FRACI) and Fellow of Royal Society of New South Wales (FRSN). Prof Zhao is interested in discovering novel electrochemical methods and materials for applications in water splitting, hydrogen fuel cells, CO2 reduction, aqueous batteries, and sensors. He has published more than 300 high impact research papers, and holds 16 families of patents of which 10 have been commercialised.
Hydrogen Links – Industry Focused Academic Research
Webinar series by HSA with the support of Academic and Industry Collaborator