One of the biggest challenges for the 21st century is to meet people’s growing need for affordable energy, while mitigating extreme weather and natural disasters by decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at Gigaton (Gt) scale. Thermochemical processes are the only type of Gt-scale technology well-controlled by human beings today, but they have also contributed to most of the anthropogenic GHG emissions. It is imperative to create and develop materials and systems of scalable and sustainablethermochemical processes to transform energy and chemical industries.
Dr. Zhai’s group combines thermal sciences, materials science, and catalysis to solve the energy and climate challenges at material, process, and system levels. Research topics include metal oxide redox cycle, solid-state ionics, solution chemistry, system energy-emission analysis, and technoeconomic analysis. Applications include hydrogen production/storage/utilization, catalyst regeneration, and CO2 capture and conversion.
