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) |