Research areas

Conversion of renewable electricity into fuels, chemicals or clean water is a major challenge for the next decade. Electrochemical flow cells, used in technologies such as water electrolysis, CO₂ electrolysis, CO₂ capture and Flow Batteries, provide a route for this conversion. We study and develop the electrolytes, membranes and processes in electrochemical flow cells. This includes mass transport, which is critical to scale technology to practical applications.

We, in the lab of David Vermaas, study mass transport and process technology to understand and develop Electrochemical Flow Systems, including water electrolysis, CO₂ electrolysis, CO₂ capture and Flow Batteries. Our work includes:

Ion exchange membranes, including bipolar membranes
Boundary layer dynamics
Optical techniques: Particle image velocimetry and Fluorescence Lifetime Image Microscopy
CO₂ conversion
Water electrolysis
CO₂ capture from water or air
Redox flow batteries

Our applied research has strong collaboration with users in industry and start-ups, including the ReCoVR project on electrochemical separations, the OFFSET project and HyPRO project on water electrolysis, and we’re coordinating the EU-project MELODY on redox flow batteries. Our previous innovations have been spinning off in, for example, the clean-tech start-up companies AquaBattery and SeaO2.