Lab Principal Investigator
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Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering - Delft University of Technology
Group: Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage Early in his mechanical engineering bachelor's at the University of Victoria, Tom developed an interest in global energy systems and developing technologies to help mitigate the impacts of climate change. His research and interests are driven equally by phenomena occurring at the nanoscale, and understanding the technical, economical and political barriers to global-scale implementation of new energy technologies. During his PhD at the University of Toronto (2013-17), he investigated catalyst-system interactions and mass transport in CO2 electrolyzers. The research formed the basis for his role in the Carbon XPRIZE competition as the Director of Manufacturing and Engineering in Round 2, working to design scaled systems. After moving to Delft at the end of 2017, his work continues to focus on different aspects of scaling CO2 electrolyzers to industrially-relevant conditions. |
PhD Students
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Kailun YangPhD Student (Co-promoted with Prof. Wilson Smith)Kailun received her Master of Engineering degree at Renmin University of China (RUC) in 2017. Currently she is a PhD student promoted by Dr. Wilson Smith and Dr. Tom Burdyny in Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage (MECS) group. In the first two years, she studied the effect of mass transport and local conditions on electrochemical CO2 reduction in conventional batch cell. Later she moved such interest to flow cell (GDEs and MEAS) studies. Her current research focuses on investigating the activity and stability of gas diffusion electrodes and the whole cell systems.
Recent Publication: In Situ Infrared Spectroscopy Reveals Persistent Alkalinity near Electrode Surfaces during CO2 Electroreduction. K Yang, R Kas, WA Smith, JACS (2019) |
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Siddhartha Subramanian
Siddhartha Subramanian earned his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from Pondicherry University, India (2014) and MSc in Chemical Engineering at Loughborough University, United Kingdom (2015). He then moved back to India performing research activities at CSIR-Central Electrochemical research Institute, Karaikudi where he worked on the design of an electrochemical process for converting CO2 to oxalic acid. In January 2020, he joined TU Delft as a PhD candidate. His current research focuses on the design of high current density systems for the electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 to value added products.
Recent Publication: New insights into the electrochemical conversion of CO2 to oxalate at stainless steel 304L cathode. S Subramanian, KR Athira, M Anbu Kulandainathan, S Senthil Kumar, RC Barik, J co2 Utilization (2020) |
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Hugo was born and grew up in Catalonia, Spain. At age 17, he moved to Delft to earn his BSc in Molecular Science and Technology and his MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Delft University of Technology. Upon graduation, he joined the TATA Steel in Europe manufacturing facility in IJmuiden, where he was mainly charged with developing advanced analytics control models based on big data. In March 2020, he joined again the Delft University of Technology as a PhD candidate under supervision of dr. Tom Burdyny, focusing on high current-density system design for electrochemical CO2-reduction. Hugo likes to fill his spare time with reading modern and classical literature, playing violin and viola at a student orchestra and string quartet and learning new languages.
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