Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Upcoming Lecture

When: September 12, 2025, 2:30 pm

Where: North Engineering room 2108

 

Hydrogen at Scale

Widespread use of renewable energy will require energy storage on a massive scale.  There are a range of energy-storage options from advanced batteries to pumped hydro to compressed air.  Another option is hydrogen due to its versatility.  Therefore, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pursuing an initiative called Hydrogen at Scale (H2@Scale) to advance affordable hydrogen production, transport, storage, and utilization in multiple energy sectors. Hydrogen is an energy carrier but it is more versatile than just for energy storage.  Hydrogen can also be used directly in transportation (e.g., fuel cell electric vehicle), used as a feedstock for synthetic fuels, ammonia production, metals refining, and other end uses, to upgrade oil and biomass, and burned for heat for industry and buildings.  The main methods for hydrogen production include reforming of hydrocarbons such as natural gas, coal gasification, biological processes, water electrolysis, and thermo-chemical cycles.  The processes involving hydrocarbons contribute to CO₂ emissions and biological processes may not be cost effective on a large scale.  In contrast, water electrolysis is commercially viable, can produce hydrogen at a large scale, and results in zero emissions. However, it may be too inefficient for industrial-scale applications.  Hence the interest in using thermochemical cycles for very large-scale hydrogen production are being explored.  In this talk, I will review our current and future energy needs, energy options, and how hydrogen could fit into our energy future. 

 Dr. John W. Weidner is Interim Provost and former Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Cincinnati.  Prior to his appointment as dean in August of 2019, he was the Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of South Carolina (USC), Director of their Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Center, and a Distinguished Scientist at the Savannah River National Laboratory.  He received his BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1986 and his PhD in chemical engineering from NC State University in 1991.  He has advised 24 PhD students, generated over $10 million in research funding, and published over 125 refereed journal articles in the field of electrochemical engineering, particularly in the synthesis and characterization of electrocatalysts and electrochemically active materials, and the mathematical modeling of advanced batteries, fuel cells, and hydrogen production processes.  Dr. Weidner was a visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of California-Berkeley, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.  He was awarded the Golden Key Faculty Award by USC in 2006 for “Excellence in Integrating Undergraduate Teaching and Research”. In 2008 and 2010, he received the Energy Research Award from the E.ON International Research Initiative and the Research Award from the Energy Technology Division of the Electrochemical Society (ECS), respectively, for his work on large-scale hydrogen production technology.  For his overall contributions to electrochemical research, he received the USC Educational Foundation Award for Research in Science, Mathematics and Engineering (2013), the Education Leadership Award at the Energy Inc. Summit in Charlotte, NC (2016), the Breakthrough Leadership in Research Award from USC (2016), and the Carl Wagner Memorial Award from ECS (2019).  He is a Fellow of ECS and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and a Program Evaluator (PEV) for ABET.

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