How green hydrogen is made

ChE Seminar Series Presents:

Marc T.M. Koper

Leiden Institute of Chemistry

Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Abstract: 

The electrocatalytic production of hydrogen through water splitting is a necessary approach for storing (excess) renewable electricity as chemical energy in fuels, and for making green hydrogen as a building block for the chemical industry. Here, I will discuss recent advances and challenges in the mechanistic understanding of electrochemical H2 formation. Specifically, I will show that H2O activation is influenced by an intricate interplay between surface structure (both on the nano- and on the mesoscale), electrolyte effects (pH, ion effects) and mass transport conditions. This complex interplay is currently still far from being completely understood.

Bio:

Marc Koper is Professor of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He received his PhD degree (1994) from Utrecht University (The Netherlands) with a thesis on nonlinear dynamics and oscillations in electrochemistry. He was an EU Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulm (Germany) and a Fellow of Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) at Eindhoven University of Technology, before moving to Leiden University in 2005. His research in Leiden focuses on fundamental aspects of electrocatalysis, theoretical and computational electrochemistry, and electrochemical surface science, in relation to renewable energy and chemistry. He has received various national and international awards, among which the Spinoza Prize of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (2021), Allen J. Bard Award for Electrochemical Science of The Electrochemical Society (2020), the Netherlands Catalysis and Chemistry Award (2019), and the Faraday Medal (2017) from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is currently President of the International Society of Electrochemistry.