Stanford Energy Student Lectures – High-temp hydrogen catalysts and induced seismicity management

Join us as grad student/postdoc speakers from various technical areas deliver short and accessible presentations about their innovative clean energy research. Learn more about cutting-edge science and the most recent breakthroughs in areas such as renewables, energy conversion materials and devices, catalysis, and decarbonization from the researchers themselves! Refreshments will be provided starting at 2:45 pm. Share your feedback on the speakers for a chance to win a Coupa gift card! Speaker Topics: Adam Potter - Breaking properties tradeoffs for the next generation of high-temperature hydrogen catalysts Abstract: Hydrogen is a carbon-free fuel with the potential to replace fossil fuels in industries such as transportation, metallurgy, fertilizer production, and sustainable fuels. Electrolyzers, devices that produce hydrogen from water using electricity, offer a pathway to zero-emission hydrogen production anywhere in the world, but they must improve both efficiency and durability to become economically competitive. High-temperature steam electrolysis is currently the most energy-efficient hydrogen production method known, but operating at temperatures up to 800°C requires advanced electrode materials that can maintain high performance while resisting long-term degradation. Discovering improved materials has been a slow process because researchers must simultaneously optimize several tightly connected properties, where improving one often worsens another. For example, increasing ionic conductivity can improve device performance but often reduces mechanical stability, leading to cracking and failure over time. As the field has advanced, many of these tradeoffs have been linked to fundamental physical mechanisms. My research focuses on high-entropy materials, which mix five or more elements in a single crystal site, creating unexpected physical effects that can break the expected property tradeoffs. My talk will focus on how key material properties enable affordable