Hydrogen Initiative is a cross-campus effort of the Precourt Institute for Energy.

Hydrogen Initiative

Utilization

Primary Research Goals:

• Improve efficiency, durability and reliability of fuel cells
• Exploit the synergy between natural gas and H2 to reduce emissions
• Couple H2 with batteries to realize flexible energy storage
• Develop infrastructure to enable broad adaption of H2 for heavy duty transportation
• Generate high-value synthetic fuels with decarbonizing potential
• Investigate applications in hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors

Hydrogen may be part of the solution for a number of different sectors including transportation, grid storage, industrial applications and synthetic fuels. Fuel cells that convert hydrogen to power are a common link across sectors and Stanford has decades of research improving efficiency, durability and reliability.

Faculty & Researchers | Areas of Interest | Related Publications

Faculty & Researchers

  • Dr. Arun Majumdar

    Dr. Arun Majumdar

    Dean, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Jay Precourt Professor, Professor of Mech Eng, of Energy Sci & Eng, of Photon Science, Senior Fellow at Woods and by courtesy, of Materials Sci & Eng and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at Hoover
  • John Weyant

    John Weyant

    Professor (Research) of Management Science and Engineering, of Energy Science Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Alfred M. Spormann

    Alfred M. Spormann

    Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and of Chemical Engineering, Emeritus

  • Friedrich Prinz

    Leonardo Professor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, of Materials Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Inês Azevedo

    Inês Azevedo

    Associate Professor of Energy Science Engineering and by courtesy, of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  • Thomas Jaramillo

    Thomas Jaramillo

    Professor of Chemical Engineering, of Energy Science Engineering, and of Photon Science
  • Frank Wolak

    Frank Wolak

    Holbrook Working Professor of Price Theory and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Paul McIntyre

    Paul McIntyre

    Rick and Melinda Reed Professor, Professor of Photon Science and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Adam Brandt

    Adam Brandt

    Associate Professor of Energy Science Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Chris Field

    Chris Field

    Melvin and Joan Lane Professor of Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor of Earth System Science, of Biology and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and at Woods
  • Matthias Ihme

    Matthias Ihme

    Professor of Mechanical Engineering and of Photon Science
  • Rob Jackson

    Rob Jackson

    Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy
  • Sally Benson

    Sally Benson

    Precourt Family Professor, Professor of Energy Science Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Precourt Institute for Energy and at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Areas of Interest

Reducing cost and increasing longevity/reliability of fuel cells

Fritz Prinz Advanced catalysts for fuel cells using ALD

Paul McIntyre Applications of ALD in solid oxide fuel cell membranes

Tom Jaramillo Development of devices capable of operating in two modes: as a water electrolyzer and as a fuel cell

Transportation (trucks, buses, cars, rail, shipping, air)

Sally Benson Comparison of hydrogen and electric buses

Stefan Reichelstein Life cycle cost analysis for vehicle fleets

Grid Storage

Sally Benson Understanding the trade-offs and co-benefits of the use of hydrogen in power grids for energy storage.

Frank Wolak Economics of Hydrogen in energy markets and policy (power to gas)

Stefan Reichelstein Value proposition of vertically integrated power to gas systems

Adam Brandt Lifecycle systems analysis of power to gas systems

Tom Jaramillo Development of Unitized Regenerative fuel cells (URFC) devices in order to convert electricity-to-H2 and H2-to-electricity for long-term, grid-scale energy storage.

Sally Benson Utilizing flare gas in Nigeria for producing hydrogen

Improving the efficiency and safety of combustion of H2

Bert Hesselink Thermo Acoustic Power System (TAPS) for generating electricity, heating and cooling.

Matthias Ihme Detailed simulations of H2/O2 combustion, heat-transfer and flame stabilization in gas-turbines, rocket engines and fuel-mixtures

Matthias Ihme Safety of H2-reaction, including detonation, quenching, flash-back and detonation transition.

Hydrogen as a feedstock to create chemical products

Matteo Cargnello Hydrogen utilization to convert CO2 into olefins

Matteo Cargnello and Arun Majumdar Hydrogen utilization to convert carbonates from CO2 capture into methane

Matthias Ihme Chemical kinetics of hydrogen oxidation

Alfred Spormann Production of methane in a biofuel cell using hydrogen producing organisms

Alfred Spormann Generating reducing equivalents via the electrode of the biofuel cell and transfer them to the hydrogenases of the methanogens with a vision of producing CH4 from CO2 in a setup with a photoelectrode

Tom Jaramillo Hydrogenation of CO2 and/or CO for the production of carbon-based fuels and chemicals (catalyst development)

Understanding the environmental impacts of carbon-free Hydrogen

Rob Jackson As part of the Global Carbon Project, has organized a new hydrogen “budget”, to capture all of the natural sources and sinks and analyzing the atmospheric lifetime of H2 (and its effects on CH4)
Rob Jackson Developing scenarios of H2 release and potential interactions with atmospheric chemistry, including ozone (Hadley Centre and UK Met office)

Related Publications

  • https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544216311173?via%3Dihub
  • Sustainability assessment of regenerative hydrogen fuel cells for energy storage. Pellow, M. A., Emmott, C. M., Benson, S. M.AMER CHEMICAL SOC. 2014. View details for Web of Science ID 000349165105056.
  • Subgrid-scale backscatter in reacting and inert supersonic hydrogen-air turbulent mixing layers JOURNAL OF FLUID MECHANICS . O'Brien, J., Urzay, J., Ihme, M., Moin, P., Saghafian, A.2014; 743: 554-584. View details for DOI 10.1017/jfm.2014.62
  • Weak and strong ignition of hydrogen/oxygen mixtures in shock-tube systems PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMBUSTION INSTITUTE Grogan, K. P., Ihme, M.2015; 35: 2181-2189. View details for DOI 10.1016/j.proci.2014.07.074
  • Hydrogen or batteries for grid storage? A net energy analysis ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Pellow, M. A., Emmott, C. J., Barnhart, C. J., Benson, S. M.2015; 8 (7): 1938-1952. View details for DOI 10.1039/c4ee04041d
  • Evaluating co-benefits of battery and fuel cell vehicles in a community in California ENERGY. Felgenhauer, M. F., Pellow, M. A., Benson, S. M., Hamacher, T.2016; 114: 360-368. View details for DOI 10.1016/j.energy.2016.08.014
  • Economic and environmental prospects of battery and fuel cell vehicles for the energy transition in German communities. 10TH INTERNATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY STORAGE CONFERENCE, IRES 2016 Felgenhauer, M. F., Pellow, M. A., Benson, S. M., Hamacher, T.2016; 99: 380-391. View details for DOI 10.1016/j.egypro.2016.10.128
  • Net-zero emissions energy systems SCIENCE  Davis, S. J., Lewis, N. S., Shaner, M., Aggarwal, S., Arent, D., Azevedo, I. L., Benson, S. M., Bradley, T., Brouwer, J., Chiang, Y., Clack, C. M., Cohen, A., Doig, S., Edmonds, J., Fennell, P., Field, C. B., Hannegan, B., Hodge, B., Hoffert, M. I., Ingersoll, E., Jaramillo, P., Lackner, K. S., Mach, K. J., Mastrandrea, M., Ogden, J., Peterson, P. F., Sanchez, D. L., Sperling, D., Stagner, J., Trancik, J. E., Yang, C., Caldeira, K.All Authors2018; 360 (6396): 1419. View details for PubMedID 29954954
  • Engineering Ru@Pt Core-Shell Catalysts for Enhanced Electrochemical Oxygen Reduction Mass Activity and Stability. Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland). Jackson, A., Strickler, A., Higgins, D., Jaramillo, T. F.2018; 8 (1). View details for PubMedID 29329264
  • Assessing the evolution of power sector carbon intensity in the United States ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS Schivley, G., Azevedo, I., Samaras, C.2018; 13 (6). View details for DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/aabe9d
  • Expert assessments of the cost and expected future performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells for vehicles PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Whiston, M. M., Azevedo, I. L., Litster, S., Whitefoot, K. S., Samaras, C., Whitacre, J. F.2019; 116 (11): 4899–4904. View details for DOI 10.1073/pnas.1804221116
  • Precious Metal-Free Nickel Nitride Catalyst for the Oxygen Reduction Reaction. ACS applied materials & interfaces Kreider, M. E., Gallo, A., Back, S., Liu, Y., Siahrostami, S., Nordlund, D., Sinclair, R., Norskov, J. K., King, L. A., Jaramillo, T. F.2019. View details for DOI 10.1021/acsami.9b07116
  • Meeting U.S. Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Targets JouleWhiston, M. M., Azevedo, I. M., Litster, S., Samaras, C., Whitefoot, K. S., Whitacre, J. F.2019; 3 (9): 2060-2065. View details for DOI 10.1016/j.joule.2019.07.018
  • Optimal Design of the Power Generation Network in California: Moving towards 100% Renewable Electricity by 2045 World Academy of Science Long, W., et al2020: 27-37
  • Practical challenges in the development of photoelectrochemical solar fuels production SUSTAINABLE ENERGY & FUELS Spitler, M. T., Modestino, M. A., Deutsch, T. G., Xiang, C. X., Durrant, J. R., Esposito, D. V., Haussener, S., Maldonado, S., Sharp, I. D., Parkinson, B. A., Ginley, D. S., Houle, F. A., Hannappel, T., Neale, N. R., Nocera, D. G., McIntyre, P. C.2020; 4 (3): 985–95. View details for DOI 10.1039/c9se00869a
  • Implications of Electricity Liberalization for Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Fuel Cell Systems (FCSs): a Case Study of the United Kingdom Journal of Power Sources. Prinz, F., B., Colella, W.
  • Design, Construction, and Testing of a Fuel Cell Powered Scooter Journal of Power Sources. Prinz, F., B., Colella, W.
  • Extending the limits of Pt/C catalysts with passivation-gas-incorporated atomic layer deposition NATURE CATALYSIS. Xu, S., Kim, Y., Park, J., Higgins, D., Shen, S., Schindler, P., Thian, D., Provine, J., Torgersen, J., Graf, T., Schladt, T. D., Orazov, M., Liu, B., Jaramillo, T. F., Prinz, F. B.2018; 1 (8): 624–30. View details for DOI 10.1038/s41929-018-0118-1
  • Hong S, Yang H, Lim Y, Prinz FB, Kim YB. Grain-Controlled Gadolinia-doped Ceria (GDC) Functional Layer for Interface Reaction Enhanced Low-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. Acs Applied Materials & Interfaces. PMID 31603644 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b13999
  • Key findings from the core North American scenarios in the EMF34 intermodel comparison ENERGY POLICY Huntington, H. G., Bhargava, A., Daniels, D., Weyant, J. P., Avraam, C., Bistline, J., Edmonds, J. A., Giarola, S., Hawkes, A., Hansen, M., Johnston, P., Molar-Cruz, A., Nadew, M., Siddiqui, S., Vaillancourt, K., Victor, N.2020; 144. View details for DOI 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111599
  • Comparison of low-carbon pathways for California CLIMATIC CHANGE Morrison, G. M., Yeh, S., Eggert, A. R., Yang, C., Nelson, J. H., Greenblatt, J. B., Isaac, R., Jacobson, M. Z., Johnston, J., Kammen, D. M., Mileva, A., Moore, J., Roland-Holst, D., Wei, M., Weyant, J. P., Williams, J. H., Williams, R., Zapata, C. B.2015; 131 (4): 545-557. View details for DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1403-5