Fall ’24 Department Seminars with Dr. Begüm Yarar Kaplan
Title: Electrocatalysts, Electrodes and Membranes for Next-Generation Hydrogen Technologies
Speaker: Dr. Begüm Yarar Kaplan
Padova University, Department of Industrial Engineering, Padova, Italy
Date: December 24, 2024, Tuesday
Time: 12:30
Place: Departmental Seminar Room (SB-Z14)
Abstract:
Climate change, energy security, and sustainability have significantly increased the importance of hydrogen technologies. Hydrogen offers pathways to decarbonization and defossilization across various sectors to achieve net-zero emissions, holding great promise as an energy carrier, fuel, and feedstock in the transition to a cleaner, renewable energy solution. It can play a vital role in reducing carbon emissions in sectors like transportation, chemicals, and manufacturing. The EU Green Deal has highlighted the critical role of green hydrogen in achieving a sustainable energy transition, significantly boosting the importance of hydrogen technologies. Hence, in the past five years, the advancement and cost reduction of electrolyzer and fuel cell technologies have become pivotal research areas. This talk will highlight advances, challenges and prospects in the development of membranes, electrocatalysts and electrodes for hydrogen-based electrolysis and fuel cell technologies. I will introduce our novel approaches to develop more active and cost-effective materials including electrocatalysts, electrodes and ion-conductive membranes for these technologies. I will present our research including graphene-based and platinum group metal (PGM)-free electrocatalysts, electrospun electrodes, and anion and cation exchange polymer electrolyte membranes. In the last section of the talk, I will also mention our studies on electrospun electrodes for Li-ion batteries.
Short Biography of the Speaker:
Dr. Begüm Yarar Kaplan received BSc and MSc degrees from Hacettepe University, Department of Chemistry and PhD at Sabancı University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering. As part of her doctoral studies, she carried out research on electrospun electrodes for fuel cells at Vanderbilt University (USA), Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She conducted post-doctoral studies on graphene-based catalysts for fuel cells while contributing to the EU-supported Graphene Flagship Project in FP7 and Horizon 2020 (Graphene-Based Disruptive Technologies) between 2017-2018. She worked at Sabanci University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center (SUNUM) as a researcher (PI) for 6 years. She has been involved in various international and national projects as a principal investigator and researcher on fuel cells, electrospun electrodes/electrolytes, lithium-ion/lithium-sulfur batteries, and electrolyzers. She was honored Young Researcher Award (2020) by the Hydrogen Technologies Association and awarded L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science Scholarship (2023). She is currently, faculty member (RTDa) at Padova University, Section of Chemistry for the Technology (ChemTech), Department of Industrial Engineering, Italy. Her current activities concentrate on the development of Pt-free electrocatalysts for fuel cells and electrolyzers, and electrospun materials for energy applications.