May 24, 2023: The work performed at SEED was showcased by 4TU Energy as part of their video on Hydrogen research across the four technical universities in the Netherlands. Aayan spoke about the work SEED members are doing in the lab and behind computers to look at the various phenomena governing the life and performance of high temperature ceramic fuel cells and electrolysers. Click here to watch the video!
October 27, 2022: Aayan Banerjee was invited to be a panellist at the EU Hydrogen Week organised by the EU Commission, the Clean H2 JU and Hydrogen Europe in Brussels, Belgium. Alongside industrial experts from Shell, Siemens and RTE, Aayan spoke about his current research and vision for "Modelling and Digital Twins in the H2 Ecosystem" and how academia and industry could work together to realise this. Thank you to the organisers for the privilege to be a part of this prestigious event and to the fellow panellists for a great discussion! Click here to watch the recording of the panel!
September 12, 2022: Aayan Banerjee gave a keynote talk at the MODEGAT VII held in Bad Herrenalb, Germany. Aayan spoke about his research on "Integrated multi-scale modelling of solid oxide electrodes, cells, stacks and systems". Thank you to the MODEGAT organisers for the invitation!
September 1, 2022: Daud Abdoh joined our group to work on the development of crack initiation and propagation models for solid oxide cells. Daud joins us from Hong Kong after finishing his PhD at the City Univeristy of Hong Kong and brings expertise on novel computational methods for fracture modelling that will be invaluable to the group!
September 1, 2022: Suman joined our group to work on the development of novel coking and temperature-resistant catalysts for CO2 methanation and integrate them into proton ceramic electrolysis cells. Suman obtained her PhD from IIT Ropar in India. Her research on Development of visible light active heterojunction photocatalysts for production of hydrogen and value-added chemicals will certainly bring valuable synthesis and characterisation experience to the group!
August 31 - September 1, 2022: Aayan Banerjee co-organised the 2022 edition of the national conference NextGenChem@NL in Groningen, the Netherlands. The conference brought together young faculty (assistant professors, tenure trackers, VENI/VIDI/ERC-StG laureates) in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering to facilitate networking, discuss common challenges and stumbling blocks in starting out as an academic in NL, and develop a toolbox on how to build, manage, and fund (interdisciplinary) teams.
August 18, 2022: Julian Dailly (EIFER), Aayan Banerjee (UT) and Olaf Deutschmann (KIT) published a patent under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) on an Electrochemical device for converting nitrogen oxides NOx into ammonia and/or hydrogen. The patent is registered in the Patentscope database of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
June 8, 2022: Aayan Banerjee gave a keynote talk at the 6th International Workshop on Prospects On Protonic Ceramic Cells (PPCC) held in Dijon, France. Aayan spoke about his research on "Integrated multi-scale modelling of solid oxide & proton ceramic cells, stacks and systems". Thank you to the PPCC organisers for the invitation!
March 18, 2022: Aayan Banerjee published a short communication entitled "Integrated Multiscale Modeling of Solid Oxide Electrodes, Cells, Stacks, and Systems" in Chemie Ingenieur Technik summarising research performed by him and his collaboartors over the past 8 years on the modelling of high temperature fuel cells and electrolysers. Part of the Special Issue on Chemische Reaktionstechnik, the paper is a nice gateway to anyone interested in learning more about the kind of work we do in the group. A big thanks to Wiley and the German Chemical Engineering Society for the invitation to contribute to the special issue!
November 29 - December 2, 2021: Aayan Banerjee was invited to give a series of lectures entitled "From benchtop experiments to industrial systems: an introduction to transport phenomena, reaction engineering and multi-scale modelling" at the annual Dutch Winter School for Theoretical Chemistry and Spectroscopy at Han-sur-Lesse, Belgium. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share knowledge with the next generation of chemists and chemical engineers!
November 25, 2021: Two NWO ECCM KICkstart DE-NL projects awarded to Aayan Banerjee to explore promising pathways to advance ceramic-membrane based electrolysers.
In collaboration with EIFER and Shell, the first project "CO2 methanation using high temperature proton-conducting ceramic electrolysers" will look to demonstrate proof-of-concept for CO2 methanation directly inside a proton-ceramic steam electrolysis cell.
In collaboration with TNO, KIT, Sunfire and Shell, the second project "Solid Oxide Electrolyser modelling: Exploring scale-up of cell size" will investigate the maximum threshold for planar cell area of solid oxide cells based on mechanical stability (specifically crack initiation and propagation) under operation.
We are keen to get started on both projects!
October 18, 2021: The Early-Career Reaction Engineers of Germany (NaWuReT) and ProcessNet invited Aayan Banerjee to speak at their online colloquium entitled "From PhD student to assistant professor – Early career chemical engineers in academia". Aside from his own research, Aayan spoke about his own academic journey from PhD student to assistant professor. Thank you to the organisers for the invitation as well as for compiling the stories of Aayan and the other speakers' academic journeys into a beautiful essay in Chemie Ingenieur Technik!
October 1, 2021: Hilbert Keestra joined our group to work on deactivation modelling of Cu-Zn catalysts for CO2 to methanol. He will start by looking at phase-field models to understand the structural evolution of these catalysts under operation over their lifetime. Hilbert obtained his MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Twente and brings a wide array of modelling interests from the micro to the macro scales! He is jointly supervised by Wim Brilman and Edwin Zondervan from the Sustainable Process Technology Group.