Projects
Ongoing projects:
Development of a molten salt electrofining process suited for the recycling of HALEU fuel production scraps
High performance research reactors (HPRRs) are vital instruments in materials research, nuclear physics and nuclear medicine. Their high neutron flux irradiation capabilities were historically obtained by the use of HEU fuel. In light of nonproliferation there is a strong drive to convert existing HPRRs to high assay LEU (HALEU) and provide HALEU fuel solutions for future HPRRs. Innovative manufacturing techniques…
Towards improved performance of flow batteries through electrode design and stability analysis
Given that the share of renewable energy sources in the world’s power mix is steadily increasing in response to treaties and actions against climate change, energy storage systems have become a crucial player to offset the intermittence coupled with renewable energy sources and allow to match production and demand. In this respect, flow batteries (FBs) offer an enormous potential for…
Upscaling effects on the purity of circular formic acid for ecological descaler production
The awareness of society in terms of sustainability and the fragility of ecosystems and our environment has pushed governments to pass legislation imposing stricter product requirements on industry. Companies are therefore looking for alternative feedstocks with less impact on the environment. This implies that the origin of these feedstocks has to be renewable or they have to be recycled from…
Clusters for CO2 electrolyzers to Ethylene (CLUE)
CLUE aims to develop the next generation CO2 electrolyzers for sustainable production of ethylene with reduced carbon footprint by designing novel, selective and highly robust electrocatalysts using an innovative approach based on Cluster Beam Deposition (CBD) technology. For electrochemical conversion of CO2 to ethylene, stimulating results have recently been obtained mainly on copper-based catalysts, yielding relatively high Faradaic efficiency (FE…
Novel catalytic materials towards a combined photo and electrochemical conversion of CO2 to methanol
The negative impact of CO2 on climate change makes the decrease of anthropogenic CO2 emissions one of the biggest scientific challenges our current generation faces. One possible solution is the direct photo- or electrochemical conversion of CO2 to highly value-added products such as methanol, using merely H2O as proton source and renewable electricity as driving force. However, in the current…
Femtosecond pulsed laser micromachining for engineering materials and catalysis research
Through femtosecond pulsed laser micromachining a wide variety of materials such as ceramics (e.g. glass), hard metals (e.g. Hastelloy), and polymers can be processed with microscale resolution, offering innovation and beyond state-of-the-art research opportunities. To name a few, the planned research infrastructure would allow to tune the catalytic properties of surfaces, to enhance flow distribution, heat transfer and mass transfer…
Understanding the role of dopants as a key step towards efficient oxygen evolution catalysts (WEAVE)
Water electrolysis has since long been considered as a sustainable and scalable technology to generate green hydrogen, which is a promising candidate to store and liberate energy from. In order to increase the overall energy efficiency of this process, it is important to understand and improve the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) by developing more efficient electrocatalysts. Crucial in this…
Electrochemical conversion of CO2 to formic acid at elevated temperatures
One of the greatest challenges faced by our current generation is lowering the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The electrochemical CO2 reduction (ECR) provides a solution to this problem by utilizing CO2 in combination with renewable energy and convert it to valuable chemicals (here formic acid, FA). However, to make the process more…
Intensification of CO2 capture processes (CAPTIN-2)
While capture of CO2 is crucial to reduce CO2-emissions, the high cost and technological limitations of available technologies restrict their successful and general industrial deployment in the CO2 capture and utilization (CCU) context. Moreover, given the limited potential of carbon utilization (e.g. the use of CO2 for the production methanol and urea has a sequestration potential of only 0.5% of…
BE-HyFE Belgian Hydrogen Fundamental Expertise
BE-HyFE stands for Belgian Hydrogen Fundamental Expertise and reads like ‘beehive’, which is what we want to offer to our research community: an organized structure in which our researchers all work for a common goal, gathering expertise (instead of honey!), cross-pollinate one another with knowledge and – next to the focus on their own research topic – see their role…
Past projects:
The impact of the electrocatalythic properties of Cu/Ag core-shell nanoparticles for the reduction of CO2 in an electrochemical flow microreactor legaten
In the last decades, the amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere has increased enormously. Due to the goals set by Europe, CO2 mitigation is of major importance for industry as well as society.
Waterside: active passive water pollution sampling device
The project aims to develop an active passive water sampler for inorganic and organic pollutants. The apparatus allows the time integrated monitoring of surface waters and waste streams.
Development of an electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy EPR platform for electrocatalysis
The goal of this project is the development of a generic platform for electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) to unravel the electrocatalytic reaction mechanism.
Influence of the morphology of core-shell nanoparticles on the mechanism of organic halide reduction
In recent years there has been a growing interest in clean and environmentally friendly methodologies in organic synthesis. To tackle these issues, an electrosynthetic methodology can be applied.
Improvement of energy and conversion efficiencies of electrochemical and plasma reactors by miniaturization
The goal of this project is the integration of plasma and electrochemical applications into a generic microreactor setup.
Construction of a prototype electrosynthesis reactor
The production of organic chemicals by means of electrosynthesis can dramatically increase reaction efficiency. The approach of this project is to construct a prototype reactor setup to facilitate the transition from classical chemical towards electrochemical pathways.
Electrochemical impedance measurements in an intelligent database of corrosion
Corrosion is a common phenomenon that causes detrimental economic and social consequences. An obvious way of corrosion protection is to prevent the metal surface from being exposed to a corrosive environment by application of one or several coatings, usually conversion coatings.
Influence of the detection method in impedimetric aptasensors
Impedimetric aptasensors consist out of two key elements: an aptamer as biologic recognition element and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) as detection method.
Electron tomography combined with state-of-the-art electrochemistry to gain better insight into the role of the different components of the active layer in a CO2 electrolyzer
Renewable energy sources can offer a solution for excessive emissions of greenhouse gases and to the expected decrease in availability of fossil fuels in the near future. Both problems would find a common solution if we were able to develop energy-efficient processes to convert (low concentrated) CO2 streams into fuels and useful chemical products, ensuring a positive economic and environmental balance.
Mixer electrodes for redox flow batteries
Renewable energy sources state the challenge of fluctuating energy production levels. As its estimated share is expected to increase with over 20%, new energy storage or conversion strategies are required.