Hydrogen energy program team
Team members in the Hydrogen Energy Program
The Hydrogen Energy Program is led by Professor Zhenguo Huang. He is the Chair of the International Hydrogen Carriers Alliance. He is Chief Investigator on three research projects on hydrogen storage and delivery funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), and sole investigator of two industry-funded hydrogen projects. Breakthroughs in hydrogen storage have been successfully commercialised in partnership with Boron Molecular, a specialist chemical manufacturer. He was awarded an ARC DECRA and ARC Future Fellowship, is a Research Advisor appointed by the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, and a recipient of the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation). He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Professor Ho Kyong Shon is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, the President of the Membrane Society of Australasia (MSA), the Editor for the Journal of Desalination, and the Deputy Director and founding member of the Centre for Technology in Water and Wastewater at UTS. He specializes in understanding physico-chemical water and energy processes. His research career focuses on studying advanced membrane fabrication, the application of membrane-based water treatment, and developing novel technology of water splitting and hydrogen separation in water. His has carried out several ARC projects and international collaboration grants.
Professor John Zhou is a Highly-Cited environmental engineer with research expertise in developing technologies for controlling air and soil pollution, and wastewater treatment. He also has a keen interest in hydrogen generation from waste, through industry funding. Following a PhD in environmental technology from the University of Manchester, John has been conducting research on topics such as agrochemicals, endocrine disrupting chemicals, transboundary air pollution, vehicle emissions, bioenergy and (bio)hydrogen, which are funded by the EU, national and international funding agencies, and industry. John has been a panel and college member for the EU Framework 6/7 and Horizon 2020, and Natural Environment Research Council.
Professor Michelle Baddeley is a Professor in Economics and Associate Dean Research at the UTS Business School. She has a Bachelor of Economics (First Class) from the University of Queensland and a Masters/PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. She has received grant funding from a wide range of sources - including the ARC and the UK Research Councils, and she specialises in the application of insights from behavioural economics to policy questions around energy and the environment, infrastructure, housing and employment. Other affiliations include Honorary Professor, UCL Institute for Global Prosperity; Adjunct Professor, University of South Australia; Associate Fellow, Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy; and Associate Researcher, Energy Policy Research Group, University of Cambridge.
Professor Peter Ralph is the Team Leader for the Algal Biosystems and Biotechnology group within the Climate Change Cluster (C3) at UTS. The group has a range of expertise relevant to capturing and using CO2 emissions from industrial processes. During the transition to fully renewable hydrogen production (green hydrogen) there will be a need to deploy carbon capture and use (CCU) technology across hydrogen production systems that emit CO2 as a waste gas; both through hydrogen formation as well as non-renewable energy generation. His team use photobioreactors to scrub CO2 (and other gaseous pollutants) and have successfully demonstrated pilot scale use of these innovative technologies with breweries. Once the algae has captured the CO2, the team can produce a wide range of commercial products including feeds, food, polymers or even biodiesel from the waste CO2. Ralph and his team have current projects involving waste remediation, bioreactor design, Industry 4.0 applications of algal production and techno-economic analysis of algae-based carbon removal. In addition to CCU, the Algal Biosystems and Biotechnology group have a broad range of research projects on developing new technologies, services and products that support sustainable practices and the bioeconomy.
Professor Guandong Xu joined UTS in 2012 and was promoted to Professor in 2018 in the School of Computer Science. He leads the Data Science and Machine Intelligence (DSMI) under Advanced Analytics Institute, specialising in the development of data-driven and actionable algorithms and systems for innovation and decision-support in research, industry, and business. Guandong’s key expertise lies in predictive analytics, interpretable machine learning and causal analysis, recommendation systems, and social computing. His research has received research funding from the Australian Research Council, Cooperative Research Centres, government agencies, and industry corporates totalling over $5M in the past five years. He is the recipient of a number of awards from Academia and Industry, His recently funded CRC-P project is developing Ai and data analytics solutions for solar farm monitoring and optimisation, dynamics of national electricity trading platform, and transfer learning for operationalising.
Dr Xunpeng (Roc) Shi is a Principal Research Fellow at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney. He is an advisor to the Global Gas Center (GGC), APEC Sustainable Energy Center (APSEC), and Energy Division of UN ESCAP. He has been worked in the energy sector for more than 20 years in industry, governments, research institutes and international organization in Australia, Brunei, China, Indonesia and Singapore and has undertaken assignments in numerous other countries. His areas of expertise include environmental and energy economics, sustainable development and the Chinese economy, with regional focuses on Australia, ASEAN, and Northeast Asia. Currently, he is working on water and carbon footprints as well as the economics of hydrogen. He received LLM from the University of Dundee, MERE and Ph.D. in Economics from the Australian National University.
Adam Berry is an Associate Professor in data innovation, leading work that is focused on the transformation of bits into knowledge through the application of data curation, machine learning, data visualisation and statistical approaches. Prior to joining UTS in 2019, he was Program Director of the $20m National Energy Analytics Research Program on behalf of the Commonwealth Department of the Environment and Energy, focussing on dismantling barriers to energy data access and building insight through the fusion of social science, computer science and electrical engineering. Adam is a winner of the inaugural CSIRO Collaboration Medal, recognising exceptional collaboration across disciplines and industry. He is passionate about bringing together teams and industry to unlock new ways of looking at, exploring and extracting actionable insight from data in the fields of energy, infrastructure and transport.
Professor Dylan Lu is a power electronics designer, specialising in design and development of switching electric power circuits and control techniques for different applications, in particular solving problems about power quality in ac grids and microgrids, integrating renewable energy and energy storage into the electric power system, and improving efficiency and reliability of power supply. His recent research work with hydrogen fuel cell focused on integrating lithium-ion battery, supercapacitor and fuel cell into a single energy pack for electric vehicles so that it extends the longevity of the energy sources and fulfils the energy and power demands based on the required mission profile. He also involves in renewable energy-related projects with Engineers without Borders and Okra Solar in solving energy poverty problem in rural and remote communities.
Associate Professor Kaveh Kahlilpour has recently joined UTS. He is a core member of Centre on Persuasive Systems for Wise Adaptive Living (PERSWADE) and leads a research stream on NetworX Analytics. Formerly he worked at Monash, Australian National University and the University of Sydney where he continues an established collaboration on energy systems and energy storage. Kaveh’s key expertise lies in the application of optimisation and decision-making algorithms for addressing complex supply chain problems in the context of sustainability and decentralized energy networks. He has co-authored two books with a focus on energy systems integration including “Community Energy Networks with Storage” published by Springer Nature, and “Polygeneration with Polystorage for Chemical and Energy Hubs” published by Elsevier. In the latter book, Kaveh has sketched a potential pathway for Australian renewable energy export within which the integration of hydrogen vector with the LNG supply chain is proposed as one medium-term solution.
Dr Nic Surawski has research interests in the control of air pollution, with most of his work focussing on options for vehicle emissions control. Nic was awarded a PhD in environmental engineering from the Queensland University of Technology for his work exploring the emissions impacts from using renewable alternative fuels in the medium duty trucking sector. Since joining UTS in 2016, Nic has worked on a variety of projects involving vehicle emissions control from the transport sector as well as projects on low-cost sensing of air quality and biofiltration of air pollution. Nic has been involved in the delivery of projects valued at $2.7 million AUD for a variety of stakeholders in Australia such as federal government departments, alternative engine design companies and city councils.
Dr Jun Li research experience and interests are mainly in the experimental and numerical study of structural safety under extreme loading events. Jun obtained his PhD from University of Western Australia with a topic “Development of a Simplified Numerical Method for Predicting Structural Response to Blast Load”. Since 2014, Jun worked on two ARC Discovery Projects on structural responses against blast loads. Jun has tested a large number of conventional reinforced concrete elements against close-in blast loads, and currently leads a project evaluating structural safety against natural gas explosions. Jun has also developed novel high-performance materials for blast resistant design.
Professor T M Indra MAHLIA obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. He was appointed as a Professor in 2009 at the same department. He was invited to join the University of Technology Sydney as a Distinguished Professor in 2018. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Indonesia and the World Class Visiting Professor Programme under the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education, Republic of Indonesia. His research interests include Energy Systems, Techno-economic analysis, Life Cycle Cost, Sustainable Energy, Energy and Environment, Energy and Fuels. He is also involved as a researcher in the 5 $AUD Million project funded by various sources. He is one of the Highly Cited Researcher in Engineering for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 by Clarivate Analytics and he is also a Field Leader in Sustainable Energy according to The Australian in 2019.
Dr Scott Dwyer has over 15 years’ experience working in and leading transdisciplinary teams as part of complex energy research projects for the public and private sectors across Europe, Asia, and Australia. His main research interests relate to the opportunities and challenges posed by the transitioning energy system, especially those of markets, customers, technologies, policies, and business models. Dr Dwyer has advised on these topics for governments, energy utilities, manufacturers, start-ups, and industry associations. He joined UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures at the beginning of 2018 and since then has worked on award-winning projects relating to Zero Emission Vehicles and Virtual Power Plants, and is currently Chief Investigator of MyTown Microgrid – an innovative community microgrid feasibility project. Prior to joining UTS, he advised some of Europe and Asia’s largest energy utilities and manufacturers on the commercialisation of stationary fuel cells.
Dr. Jahangir Hossain has 20 years of teaching and research experience in the area of renewable energy, energy storage systems (battery and hydrogen storage), microgrids and power systems. He is currently an Associate Professor with the School of Electrical and Data Engineering, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. He is working on different aspects of clean hydrogen, for example optimization of clean hydrogen infrastructure, feasibility analysis of a hydrogen fuel station, hydrogen storage, impacts of hydrogen storage on distributed power systems and gas-electricity interconnected networks. He is currently leading two projects on microgrids and energy storage systems with five industries and two collaborative universities funded by Australian Federal Government and Australian Research Council. He has involved in 30 projects (research, teaching and learning) with a total budget over $5million AUD, as a principal or co-principal investigator. The projects were funded by Australian Federal and State Governments, Australian Research Council, Industries, Australian Science of Academy, Cooperative Research Centres (CRC), Australian Power Institute (API), Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC-India) and Universities. His research network includes Asian countries such as India, China, Bangladesh, and several European countries (France, Ireland, Denmark, UK), USA and Brazil. His research interests include renewable energy integration, energy efficiency, building energy management systems, microgrids, and energy storage systems including hydrogen storage systems.
Associate Professor Christina Sklibosios Nikitopoulos is a leading researcher in energy finance, sustainable finance, renewable energy and commodity markets. Christina’s projects in sustainable finance address the challenges of fossil fuel divesting, green bonds labelling and the effects on climate change transition risk on sovereign bond markets. This research assesses the risk and return characteristics of fossil fuels and renewables and investigates realistic portfolio construction strategies to inform the optimal method of reduction in carbon exposure. Considering the threat climate change poses to the global economy, this research provides evidence of an increase in the significance of climate risk transition risk factors as determinants of sovereign bond markets. She is also leading several projects addressing the impact of renewable energy generation on electricity price dynamics in Australia. Christina has been awarded two Australian Research Council grants with total funding of $500,000 and several internal research grants, including funding from the Centre of Business and Sustainable Development for 2022-2024 through the Research Partnership program and Dean's Strategic Research Fund Collaboration and Networking Grant 2022. Christina is a member of the Commodity and Energy Markets Association (CEMA), the Academic Female Finance Committee (AFFECT), the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE), Financial Research Network (FIRN), and the Australian Accounting & Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ).
Dr Yuhan Huang has research interests in the energy and environmental problems, with his latest research focussing on vehicle emissions, urban air quality, calcium looping, methane dry reforming, and industrial waste heat recovery. Yuhan received a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from UTS for his work exploring the effective and efficient use of bio-ethanol fuel in spark ignition engines. Since joining UTS in 2017, Yuhan has worked on a variety of research topics including vehicle emissions control, pollutants dispersion, urban planning and renewable energies. Yuhan was a recipient of many fellowships such as ARC DECRA, UTS Chancellor's Research Fellow, and CISRO International Hydrogen Research Fellow. Yuhan has led or participated in 13 research grants, accounting for over AU$2.1M in total, such as ARC, HK RGC, HK ITF and HK ECF.
Prof Guoxiu Wang is the Director of the Centre for Clean Energy Technology and a Distinguished Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. Professor Wang is an expert in materials chemistry, electrochemistry, energy storage and conversion, and battery technologies. His research interests include lithium-ion batteries, lithium–air batteries, sodium-ion batteries, lithium–sulfur batteries, 2D materials, and electrocatalysis for hydrogen production. Professor Wang has published over 650 refereed journal papers with an h-index of 148. His publications have attracted over 72000 citations. He has been recognized as a highly cited researcher in both Materials Science and Chemistry by Clarivate Analytics.
A/Prof Hao Liu is recipient for many fellowships such as UTS Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow (2012), ARC DECRA Fellow (2014) ARC Future Fellow (2018), CSIRO Hydrogen Fellow (2023). He interests in the research fields of electrochemistry, nanotechnology and energy storage and conversion. He has expertise in the synthesis of nanostructured materials and their applications in the fields of rechargeable batteries and electrocatalysis (e.g. electrochemical hydrogen production). So far, he has published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with more than 15,200 citations and h-index of 62 (Web of Science). His Field-Weighted Citation Impact is 4.06 (2018-2023). He is one of "Highly Cited Researchers" selected by Clarivate Analytics in 2018. He is also the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2022. He has been able to attract significant research projects, including ARC Discovery Project (2), Future Fellowship, DECRA, Linkage Project, LIEF (2), Railway CRC (2), Future Battery Industry CRC and other Fundings from external/internal agents with total funding amount about $6.9 million. He is associate editor of Energy Materials and editorial board member of Battery Energy (Wiley) and Batteries (MDPI).
Dr Limei Yang currently focuses on materials for energy conversion and storage, in the fields of batteries, hydrogen, solar energy, and thermal energy. In particular, she has strong expertise in metal-based hydrogen storage materials. She has worked on various types of materials including metals, alloys, oxides, nitrides, and carbides, which exist in different forms such as nanoparticles, nanowires, thin films, and bulk. Her publications appear in journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Communications, Energy & Environmental Science and Advanced Energy Materials. Prior to UTS, she worked in the Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis at The University of Sydney, where she focused on materials characterisation using Focused Ion Beam Microscopy, Atom Probe Tomography, and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Prior to this post, she was a postdoctoral researcher at The Ohio State University (Columbus), where she focused on micro/nano/atomic structure characterization using aberration-corrected Transmission Electron Microscope.
Dr Minghong Huang received his Bachelor and master degree in material Engineering from South China University of Technology in 2014 and 2017, and PhD degree from UTS in 2023. His research interests include electrochemical catalysis, MOF-derived electrocatalysts, hydrogen generation, electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction, small organic molecules oxidation.
Dr Yan Dai received his PhD degree in engineering from University of Technology Sydney in 2023. His PhD topic is novel hydrogen-rich boron-carbon-nitrogen molecules as hydrogen carriers. He is now working on a CRC-project in partnership with Boron Molecular and GrapheneX to reduce the production cost of sodium borohydride (NaBH4), a hydrogen storage compound. His research interests include small hydrogen rich molecules for hydrogen storage and heterogeneous catalysts for hydrogen release/storage.
A/Prof Cuong Ton-That is an expert in materials physics, specialising in water splitting technologies for sustainable energy. He leads the Wide Bandgap Semiconductors group at UTS, where his research focuses on developing advanced materials for photoelectrochemical (PEC) and photocatalytic water splitting. His work in hydrogen production leverages cutting-edge techniques in oxide semiconductors and liquid metal integration, aiming to enhance PEC efficiency. Over his career, he has secured several prestigious grants, including four ARC Discovery Projects, which have enabled his contributions to materials science and hydrogen energy. His expertise in semiconductor characterisation and defect analysis has advanced photocatalytic systems for hydrogen generation. Beyond academia, he has successfully built strong collaborations with industry, securing multiple industry-driven grants.
