On top of a major shift in the way people around the world live their lives, meeting the goal of no more than a 1.5 degree Celsius increase above preindustrial global mean temperature is going to necessitate the widespread adoption of existing and as-yet-unforeseen technologies. This awareness is not new to researchers at UC Irvine.
More than a quarter century ago, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission, scientists and engineers at UC Irvine launched the National Fuel Cell Research Center, devoted to the study of clean energy infrastructure and methods.
At its dedication in 1998, the NFCRC was headed by Scott Samuelsen, professor (now emeritus) of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The leadership of the center was transferred to Jack Brouwer, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who is now director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Institute. Exemplifying the interdisciplinary nature of the center, it has been led since October 2022 by Iryna Zenyuk, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Zenyuk says she has taken charge of the NFCRC as it’s shifting direction toward new technologies that have come to dominate the market for hydrogen-based power infrastructure. An expert on low-temperature hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers, Zenyuk says that her experience and knowledge are a good match with emerging trends in sustainable energy science and engineering.
“We are academics, so we are in the business of creating the future workforce, making our students successful, and making sure they go out there and change the world. This is something we have to keep in mind: We are still an academic institution that prioritizes our students.”
- Iryna Zenyuk, Director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center
“My education and experience have focused heavily on low-temperature technologies, so I consider myself as part of a new generation,” she says. “It made sense to have this changing of the guard to focus on these new ways of addressing our energy needs in the climate change era.”
The fundamental components of this low-temperature approach are fuel cells and electrolyzers. Fuel cells use hydrogen as a fuel source to make electricity to power machines and propel vehicles. Electrolyzers are “kind of the reverse,” according to Zenyuk: They use electricity to split water molecules. The result is hydrogen, which can be stored in tanks or distributed through pipelines, with pure oxygen as the emitted gas. The electrolyzer process can be even cleaner if the electricity source is renewable wind or solar power.
Zenyuk says that NFCRC researchers focus much of their time and energy on matching power sources to the needs of end-users.
“Renewable power such as wind and solar is intermittent; it comes and goes on the millisecond level,” she says. “High-temperature technologies take a long time to ramp up, so they don’t have the same intermittent response profile as lower-temperature proton exchange membrane electrolyzers, which can do this job very well.”
While these low-temperature hydrogen technologies are a key area of study, Zenyuk notes, they’re not universally applicable.
“The Department of Energy has shifted its focus away from hydrogen in light-duty vehicles, a sector in which hydrogen is not competitive against batteries,” she says. “Batteries do so well in light-duty vehicles that they’re doing a lot to decarbonize that sector.”
But hydrogen is the right solution for heavy-duty transport, Zenyuk says: “Hydrogen is very light, so it facilitates long-range driving and a short refueling time, so you don’t have to sacrifice the payload.”
Beyond the basics of hydrogen storage and energy conversion, NFCRC scientists and engineers are working on deeper questions about the materials needed in fuel cells for propelling long-haul trucks. “Durability becomes a problem with a truck driving a million miles,” Zenyuk says. “We need to develop systems that can be used for a long time without losing their stability or activity.”
“The quality of students we have entering the energy field is, I believe, extremely high. And they choose to come to UCI because we are the leader in the hydrogen energy conversion field.”
- Zenyuk
Another materials-related consideration for NFCRC researchers is the availability of the elements used in electrolyzers and fuel cells. For example, there currently is no alternative to iridium, a byproduct of platinum mining, which is used as a catalyst in electrolyzers.
“We have looked into how much iridium is obtainable through mining each year (7 tons) against how much we’re going to need to deploy around 4,000 gigawatts of electrolyzers – to meet the International Energy Agency’s goal of keeping the global mean temperature within 1.5 degrees of the preindustrial era’s – and the math is starting to look challenging,” Zenyuk says.
“On top of that, there are other markets that need iridium too, so we really need to start thinking of recycling old electrolyzers to reuse the iridium in them right away. And we need to learn how to reduce iridium use but still get the same performance and durability, which is a core area of my research group.”
These kinds of projects help students in NFCRC labs to excel, according to Zenyuk.
“We are academics, so we are in the business of creating the future workforce, making our students successful, and making sure they go out there and change the world. This is something we have to keep in mind: We are still an academic institution that prioritizes our students,” she says.
“The quality of students we have entering the energy field is, I believe, extremely high. And they choose to come to UCI because we are the leader in the hydrogen energy conversion field.”
Zenyuk says students benefit from UC Irvine’s core excellence in subjects such as electrochemistry that are vital to the clean energy research field.
“These young people are getting steeped in the fundamental disciplines that drive the hydrogen market, and they’re extremely well prepared when they graduate,” she says. “My students are getting six or seven job offers a few months before graduation. They’re going into an industry that’s on an upward trajectory, with billions in federal and privately sourced funding.”
Zenyuk says the NFCRC has done a lot in recent months to shift its focus toward workforce development and training of students and postdoctoral scholars.
“We’re enabling students here to grow much faster than before, not just through teaching and mentorship but through hosting seminars and bringing industry figures,” she says. “We’re exposing UC Irvine students to all the technological changes and trends that are central to the clean energy marketplace.”
