Research areas

Conversion of renewable electricity into fuels, chemicals or clean water is a major challenge for the next decade. Electrochemical flow cells, such as water electrolysis, CO₂ electrolysis, electrochemical desalination and Flow Batteries, provide a route for this conversion. To make these technologies practical feasible at large scale, mass transport and membrane separation are two key aspects that need to be developed.

The David Vermaas Lab studies mass transport and separation techniques in Electrochemical Flow Systems, including water electrolysis, CO₂ electrolysis, CO₂ capture and Flow Batteries. This includes:

• Ion exchange membranes, including bipolar membranes
• Boundary layer dynamics
• Particle image velocimetry
• Electrochemistry (CO₂ conversion, electrolysis)
• (Reverse) electrodialysis
• Heat-to- power conversion
• Redox flow batteries

Our applied research has strong collaboration with industry, including work with Shell (DISCO project and TOeLS project on CO₂ conversion), the industrially minded EU-project GENESIS for CO₂ capture, collaborative work via the Wetsus platform for seawater decarbonisation, the coordination of EU-project MELODY on redox flow batteries (incl. start-up Elestor and Shell) and an affiliation to clean-tech start-up company AquaBattery.