My research group’s general interests lie in the area of energy generations from alternative fuels in a variety of ways. Among them, we especially focus on generating hydrogen gas from bio-fuels and abundant natural gases, developing fuel cells that directly convert the chemical energy of small organic molecules (e.g., formic acid) or logistic fuels (e.g., gasoline and biodiesel) to electrical power, working with natural enzymes to produce electrical power from sugars, and developing electric field assisted methane reforming and water-gas-shift reactor systems.
In hydrogen generation research, the objective is to efficiently generate hydrogen gas from bio-ethanol and natural gases by synthesizing novel nanoparticle catalysts for use in hydrogen fuel cells. If they can become viable and less costly, hydrogen fuel cells could be hugely more efficient than internal combustion engines for cars, and the only waste product is water. In order to increase the reforming performances, our group also investigates the effect of electric fields on heterogeneous catalysis.
