Prof. Carlos Morales-Guio

Hello and welcome to PodCat, the one-stop shop for all your catalysis needs. I'm Mark Porosov, and I'm Ezra Clark. Today we welcome Professor Carlos Morales-Gio, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Molecular Engineering at UCLA. His group develops reactor-centric methods that decouple transport from intrinsic kinetics and translate insights into scalable, model-informed, electrolyzer designs. Carlos receives his bachelor's in chemical engineering from Osaka University and his master's in PhD in chemistry and chemical engineering from EPFL. Before joining UCLA in the fall of 2018, Carlos was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Carlos is a recipient of the Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship and I say a Brown Bovary Award in 2017, a dialogue fellowship on negative emission sciences, the NSF Career Award and is a Resnick Young Investigator. It is our pleasure to welcome Carlos to PodCat. Thanks for joining us, Carlos. It's a pleasure to have you today. Thank you, Mark. Thank you Ezra for the invitation and the opportunity. So we'd kind of like to start this out by hearing how you got started in science. What got you interested in science and how did you end up here today? So I'm originally from Colombia and when I was in high school, I used to work during the holidays, during the school vacations in a vineyard. And there is where I got my first sort of experience of doing experiments. So a person there asked me to measure the content of alcohol in wines using surface tension. So then I took a book and I went through a whole process and I found it very interesting the fact that you can use science to measure things. And then I decided to go for, I like chemistry, math, physics, so I went into chemical engineering because I was told that if I study chemistry, I would become a professor. So I said no, I decided to go for chemical engineering. And then, but yeah, then I did my undergrad in Japan in Osaka University. After that, I went for my masters and PhD at EPFL. There I started doing photo electrochemistry. During my undergrad, I did heterogeneous catalysis during the masters and PhD then I did photo electrochemistry. And then I came for my postdoc to the dark side. So just doing electrolysis in the dark. And then yeah, I always wanted at every time to go into industry because I was trying to avoid academia. Well, it was not something I thought of. I always thought that the, it's a chemical engineer you go into a company. But it happens that I applied for this job and this was the first offer that I get. So I took it and that's why I, yeah. So what attracted you to graduate school? What was the reason for that? My experience in undergrad, doing experiments so that the fact that you can do experiments that you can learn something that nobody else knew because you had a new material or you saw a new catalytic reaction, I think that was very, that's what I think is part of that idea of how I like these. I want to do more research, right? What catalysis of all things. I guess you had that experience with the interface and also by chance, I mean, when I went into chemical engineering, I wanted to do fermentation because I used to work in the bioinures. I was thinking, I will do chemical engineering so that I can make beer and wine, the lab that was doing bio reactors did not have an opening, but the catalysis one had one, an opening. So I went into that lab. It was not by design, yeah. So you're quite the world traveler during your education. You started in Columbia, you went to Japan, Switzerland, back to the US. So what kind of informed these decisions about where you decided to do your education and how did you, like, cast such a white net? Like it's fascinating. Like some people, you know, they start in America, they go to Europe and they come back and it's kind of like this proven route, some people to come to the US and they stay. But you kind of hopped all over the place. So what? Yeah. Out of chance, I mean, by out of need as well, I think, I went to Japan because the Japanese government offers scholarships for undergrad, for people from developing countries and that's not very common, that you get to get a full scholarship for your undergrad, right? So I saw that opportunity. I didn't have the resources to study chemical engineering in Columbia. I was in a private university. It was very expensive. I got a scholarship the first year and then I lost it after one semester. So then, so then out of that, I said, okay, maybe I will try to find a way to pay for my own education and the Japanese government offers that opportunity. I went just for engineering, not because I had any specific interest in the culture or anything which they would take me for to study. And then, so I was very happy in Japan. In 2011, there was the tsunami, the big earthquake and before that, the economic situation was not great in Japan. So then they were, I think, reducing the scholarships to go for masters because I was saying I will stay for masters in Japan. But then they changed the conditions, they increased the GPA, my GPA was not good enough. And I say, okay, I have to apply somewhere else where I can get a scholarship and I get a scholarship to do a master's in incident. So then I moved out of, I went wherever they gave me a scholarship. I said, mm-hmm. And then, yeah, can you comment a little bit about how the academic environment kind of varies from country to country, place to place and kind of what did you learn by being in all these different environments? I learned that there are many similarities that are the same. And I also think that if you move in those environments of the universities, you will always be in a bubble, right? The universities, whatever you go, you will have people that speak English, right? The environment around will be similar, most people will be like-minded, so then that is very similar if anything I learned. But yeah, I think doing the undergrad in Japan, I appreciate very much that they are very thoughtful in the math and the description of the processes. And I was thinking, that's only in Japan, but then here in the US is the same, right? So it's, it's a, but yeah, so I, it's very similar. I will say, man. - Did you learn any Japanese? I assume it's all taught in English. - So no, no, no, no, no, no. - No, no. - The, to this, this, the, the, the, the, the, the, education institute, ministry in Japan. So they take me every year, 100 people or so, 200, 150 and then they send half of them to Osaka and half of them to Tokyo, for one year to learn the language. So in one year, they teach Japanese, so that then you can go in the second year and then go to different universities in Japan to do the undergrad. So I was only non-Japanese in my, in my undergrad, so everything was in, in Japanese. - Wow. That seems pretty challenging. And so you mentioned that you never really thought about academia, but you stuck with academia, going from masters to PhD and ultimately postdoc. - When, when in this journey, did you start thinking that academia might be in the cards for you? - Yeah, so the, when I was doing my PhD in Switzerland and finishing the PhD, to get a job in Switzerland, it's very complicated because the, the priority is given typically to, to Swiss nationals and then to people from the EU. And then if you're from outside of the European Union, then you, you have essentially to get that company that says this person is unique and we need to hire him or her. And then so I applied for many jobs and didn't get any interview interviews and then so I applied for a postdoc. Even I didn't want to do a postdoc, right, but there was the only option that I got, right. And then so once I came and do my, did started doing my postdoc here, I met my PhD advisor in a conference and he was the one that told me, you should apply for this faculty position. But I was just like six months into my postdoc, right. I was thinking, well, this is too early and you're supposed to get papers out and everything. And he said, now maybe in chemical engineering, typical postdoc is two years, right. So maybe you start applying when you're in the first year of your, of your, of your, of your piece of your postdoc, right. But so I applied it just because he told me to apply. And then I had my dose here and everything and then so I sent three more applications here in the US. But I never saw it as. that's what I that that's what I want to do right I was always thinking I would go to industry at some point but then I had two kids already and whatever paid the bills I went through the process the interviews and I got an offer and I say yeah I will I will take it here and so you know got a lot of questions but one you know is go having gone through that faculty search process what did you learn along the way that you would be willing to share with our listeners that are interested in kind of following in those footsteps that these numbers game so it's you have to increase the probability that you get an interview first then you probably have to like for anything I think I imagine if you're applying for a job in a company is the same you will have to send your dossier many many places right now that I look from the other side I actually see why they call me for an interview right so I did have a good number of publications the fact that that I'm from I never represented minority that that's something I didn't think so in my mind I was never I'm necessarily I never felt like a minority when I went to Japan for example even though I was the minority but because in Japan you you speak Japanese and they celebrate you right for you they speak Japanese you come to the US you speak English and then they say well obviously yeah you have to so I never felt like this is I really like a minority I felt like like something just a little bit different let's say in academia and it's just now that I realized how and they represented for example his panics are in engineering right and in faculty positions and so now when I look back I say well maybe I did stand out a little bit among the the applicants because I you get a lot of applicants that have very good CVs and similar CVs right so then when you have out of 300 people when you have to bring five six seven eight four interviews right now you're trying to get really split hairs between okay what what makes this person a little bit different right so then so if anything advice for the for people that are applying for faculty position is it's it's maybe try to think what differentiates you right out of out of everybody right make sure that that is put a little bit in front so that people can just you get too many good applicants right yeah and so depending on timelines of different programs the interview process is probably starting right around now or very soon or in the new year and so when you went through that interview process was there anything you took away from it that you share with our listeners yeah I mean be yourself I think the uh prepare I think there is uh now that I see many more now I'm on the other side I see many applicants I think the when someone is very well prepared you can tell right so the person did look with who they're going to interview right who they're going to speak to right so they do the homework they research so then they come across much more focus and interest that right sometimes there are candidates that get I don't know 10 20 interviews right and then for for them it might be a little bit more difficult to do the research of all the departments and everything and sometimes and you can feel that a little bit that the that the person is just going through the movements right and so if you get used one interview make sure that you do all the research right um and if you get 20 interviews then also try to make the research also learn now is that the where you when you go to interview they are also trying to self themselves to the department right so hopefully you're going to have a department that actually shows and treats you well uh doing that interview process right because it's uh it's a little bit of a matching process right but yeah one of the things that you know I've been around long enough now to have served on some search committees and one of the things that kind of surprised me a little bit once I started looking at all these applications was how few of them kind of tailor the application to the department that they applied to um you know one of the things that I really look for when I've been on serving on these committees is why is this the this department where you want to be why is this department the department that's going to maximize your chances of success in this job um and so you know if I had one recommendation for for people would be to you know really have something in that application that explains why this department and not just any old department and and you know at least make sure that you've addressed the cover letter to the right department you you've been surprised how often I've seen that mistake and on an application um that's kind of crazy yeah so when when I applied here to the US I submitted three applications only and I got two interviews but I did tailor I did exactly what you say I want to work with this person because they do theory for exactly the experiments that I do I did tailor a lot now that I think of it's did they get to read carefully all the the research statement I don't know right but the but but it depends right there are some departments that for example they will not hire two people that do exactly the same or two junior faculty that they do exactly the same right so then the I don't know if it's in all the departments right but but in smaller departments probably they wouldn't have a lot of people that do exactly the same so then how do you differentiate from from the faculty that is already there right or do you contribute something different that should be obvious right right so yeah I'm curious when you're applying for these jobs you know you write your research statements you've got some idea what you might want to work on and then you get in the job and sometimes you stick to that and but it seems like talking to our guests most of the time you don't um some curious you know how has it gone for you um have you did you kind of stick with that plan or has it have you gone totally left for you I went left field because the the renovation of my lab took three years oh wow all the ideas that I had in the beginning no I actually did the I have stayed uh into in the one of the things that I proposed was to study transport for example in electro catalysis and that's that has been the center of the things that I'm doing um but many of the experiments I wanted to do in the first few years side because the lab was not ready then I couldn't do anything and people started publishing on those things right so then you have to be a little bit resourceful right and if if if I feel this too crowded I think you have to try to find something that is a little bit different but you cannot go too far from what you know and what you have done because then otherwise it will take you the learning curve will be very large right and then for a 10-year track position you have five six years to essentially demonstrate that you that you can get a lab that you can grab it at PhD students right so you cannot really send them in a path what you have no experience being so it's important to do something that is a little bit different from what you did before not too far right and so I guess one question is what do you do I mean you're a new assistant professor it's your first day on the job you know you got five six years to make the case of why you should be given a 10-year and your lab is under construction you know how does that feel it must be a little bit stressful and what did you do to be productive during those years yeah I mean whatever you go they will take you that it's three months the renovation right and in three months they tell you three more months and then you never know that it would it will be six six three years right yeah but I think very quickly I think you have to recognize that you you will be evaluated by what you have done right not by whether you were given resources or not right so then you have to show something so we started doing a lot of modeling multi-scale modeling that that's something that I had not done a lot but that now is a big part also of the research that I do right so then I think if I had had the lab I would have jumped into doing experiments and that's it but because I didn't have a lab then I just peep out a little bit and started doing something doing multi-scale modeling of the processes the systems that I had already been working on right so it's not very different but it's yeah yeah I remember talking to you in Arizona at the silo in one of the things that you mentioned that your group specializes in, or it's like very fundamental, dimensionless numbers. - Yeah. - And so like, can you talk about that a little bit particularly like how you bring in the fundamentals into catalysis research? - Yeah. So I think a big center of our efforts now is just bringing classical chemical engineering concepts into electro-catalysis, but that's it's actually not that difficult, and it makes a lot of sense, but nobody is using it right. Not a lot of people look at transport or porosity, how the porosity affects production rates, right? In a catalyst, there are many basic concepts for utilization efficiency, right? That explains a lot of misconception that's at least in the field of electro-catalysis, right? So the dimensionless number, the nice thing is that we have been thinking of the field, right? Everybody makes a new catalyst and they give a new mechanism, right? And I think the funding agencies are also getting eventually tired of, okay, what is new and see a two-electric reduction, for example. So new materials, new mechanisms, they want to see translation, right? And then when you start thinking about translation, then you think of scale. And then when you think of scale up, you say, okay, how do you scale up things in chemical engineering, right? So you go back to those dimensionless numbers. So a catalyst, for example, it doesn't care what it is sitting in a small reactor and a large reactor, it only cares what is happening locally. And the time scales, the local time scales for reactants to come to the surface for catalysis to happen, for transport to happen away from the surface, right? And so the, in classical chemical engineering, what we try to find is that dimensionless numbers that links somehow your catalysts with some selectivity or some activity. And then we design reactors that are completely different at a large scale, but if you go and see locally, the dimensionless units is the same, right? The relative time scales are the same. So that's something that is very basic, but in electrochemistry and electro catalysis, it does not happen. So we have been looking a lot at the signing reactors that allow us to control those different time scales or, for example, for transport, for reaction. Bring those results into a dimensionless number and then build a reactor that is bigger, larger area, right? And then designing the reactor so that locally, you actually get the same time scale and to demonstrate that then the product selectivity is the same, because a lot of the challenges is that if you have a catalyst, you test it in one square centimeter there, it gives you ethylating, for example. And then you take the same catalyst, you make it 100 times larger in a larger electrode and then the selectivity changes, right? And then the question is, why? The catalyst has not changed, right? But the transport, the conditions that the catalyst see are different, right? So then the question is, how do you engineer the environment so that the catalyst is the same relative time scale to make a dimensionless number? And so when you're designing these reactors is the thought to control these dimensionless numbers and get fundamental insights into how the magnitude of these different dimensionless numbers impact activity selectivity or is the goal more to design reactors that could be scaled up where you can systematically control these different dimensionless numbers to be where in whatever regime you need to produce the products that you wanna make or is it some kind of hybrid of those two? - It's a hybrid, so we have a rotating cylinder electrode, for example, it has also existed I don't know, 700 years. And that allows you to have very well-defined mass transport around big surfaces, large electrode surfaces where locally the catalyst is exactly the same environment, right? So then we can, we use those reactors to see how selectivity changes as a function of transport. Now, how do you control that at a large scale? It starts to get more complicated so you realize that the reactors actually do not look the same. The reactors have to look completely different. But still you have that challenge that you have to deal with the fact that you have gradients in concentration, for example, along the surface of an electrode. And so the way that we came around is that then we decided to realize, well, how do you ensure that the same catalyst and large surface areas actually sees the same environment everywhere, right? And so now we have been working on an electrolyzer that looks like a distillation column. So in a distillation column, you have the tray plate, right? And you have a lot of holes, for example, that bring the gas. But then you have more or less the same composition everywhere on the tray, right? Because you have the liquid the gases, right? So in this design, what we do is now we can go to 1,000 centimeters of electrodes, right? Where we have different bubblers that bring the gas from the bottom. And then it distributes the same type of concentrations all over the catalyst. Now you have the same type of reactions. It's just that now your gas composition is changing above that tray, but that gas head space goes into the next tray, right? So where you can have now a different catalyst, but all the trays, and you can increase the dimensions of your electrode just by adding more bubblers, in a way, right? Or you're making your plates larger. But now you can ensure that everywhere you have the same environment, right? So that's what we figure out is that you have to think a little bit of different reactors design, based on the fundamental knowledge that you have, right? And by understanding how difficult it is to actually control something at a large electrode area, right? Just by, if you're dragging things over to the same, and I don't know if it makes sense to answer. - Yeah, yeah. Well, question I have for you know, nowadays, there's all these papers coming out about different reactor designs for, especially for electro catalysis. And, you know, I don't really heavily work in this area, but one thing I notice is that each of these papers tends to highlight the certain metrics that their reactor is good at. You know, it could be high voltage efficiency, it could be high product selectivity, it could be high single-pass conversion. And then the parameters that are not so good tend to get kind of hidden somewhere, usually in the SI. I'm just curious like from your perspective, how easy is it right now to, I guess one is, you know, from your perspective, how transparent are all of these different aspects of reactor design in the literature, how easy is it for you to compare, you know, your design to other designs out there, in terms of all these different metrics that people care about, or that might be important. And is there a need kind of in the community to just make these comparisons a little bit easier to do? - Yes, but I think it will be challenging if everybody uses a different reactor. So what we have learned is now we make that distinction between reaction kinetics and reactor kinetics, right? And so in chemical engineering, you learn that you can put the same catalyst in a batch reactor and you will see certain output as a function of time or as CSTR and you will see a certain output, a different output as a function of the residence time or a platform reactor. You will see a different productivity as a function of the length, right? But the catalyst is the same. So as long as you put the same catalyst, but everybody put it in different reactors, right? Then the product output that you will see will be different. The mechanism that you imagine that is happening will be different, right? So as long as everybody has different reactors, I think it will be very difficult to compare any metrics, right? - Mm-hmm. - And the other thing is that we don't look at the reactor as a reactor on its own, right? That's the, so I teach the process of the sign. So I think of the balance of plant, right? The reality is that if you have a reactor that has a low conversion, right, then maybe you can think of what is the recycle mechanism by? How I do a separate, how much of it can I recycle, right? If you have a reactor that has a very high conversion, right? The question is, well, how big can you get the system to use? Look, yeah, you have to decouple your ideas and you'll be outside of just the, even the selectivity. If you make a liquid product and a gas product, maybe you can think of the balance of the plant in which it makes sense to get to settle the two products, right? The metric that is key, at least in CO2 electrical catalysis, is the cell voltage, because that defines the efficiency and the economics of the system, not even the current densities. When I see papers of people that say, ah, we operate it industrially relevant current densities, I think. That person has never been in the industry. There is no so the the the voltage for sure because the voltage is linked to the energy efficiency of your system if the thermo dynamic minimum voltage is 1.2 volts and you're operating at 3 volts, you're already putting a ceiling on your efficiency, right? Yeah, so yeah, so the the efficiency needs to be high 50% plus electrolysis are 70 80% right so any electro catalytic technology has to be at that level right so that's why I don't Yeah, lithium mediated ammonia production for example because you have to play the lithium first right that already I think it's that's put a ceiling sort of in the efficiency right I understand why people do it for fundamental understanding and other things but then but the voltage the cell voltage between the cathode and the anode is what what determines the energy efficiency and the energy efficiency that reminds how much electricity you need to pay for in electro catalysis and that determines the price. And so you're you're kind of common theme here if you're looking at all these different types of reactors you just bring it all back to thermodynamics to is that my answer to to compare. Yeah, it needs to make sense. Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's so important to think about the balance of systems as you mentioned. You know, I remember when I was getting started on CU2 reduction there was all this focus on making ethanol. Everybody wanted to make ethanol if you could improve the ethanol fair day efficiency even marginally you know you would get a paper in a nice journal but then you know nobody was really asking is ethanol makes sense to produce as a target product and you're going to end up with a really dilute stream that needs to be separated and you're going to put a lot of energy in to really get your product out. Another thing I don't see people thinking about enough is you know we're always testing these catalysts with you know 99.99% pure reactant. No contaminants there and you know certain catalysts might perform really well when there's absolutely no poisons around. But other catalysts might be a lot more tolerant to those contaminants and so they look relatively worse when everything's completely pure but in a more real world scenario they might actually outperform. And I think in general that's something that people need to think about a little bit more is just where are you getting the reactant? What else might be around and what are you going to make and how are you going to ultimately harvest that product and how much energy is it going to take to do that? I don't see nearly enough talking about that in the in the folks that are really focused on the catalysis aspects. At least in at least in electric catalysis. Yeah but I will argue that then so the reality is that in electro catalysis there will be also some economies of scale. So the we talk about the electro catalysis and decentralization right and small scale. But the things it's once you think you think about it it just doesn't make economic sense right. If you in industrially when you talk about small scale plants it's a hundred tons per day. Middle scale plants it's a 500 tons per day and large scale is a thousand tons per day. But the small scale is a hundred tons per day right and I think in electro catalysis we think small scale is a couple. My garage. My grant per day right and that's not the so so for anything that is fuels and chemical manufacturing right in order to be profitable. You will have to be done at a similar scale what it is today and then when you get into those scales then the cost of removing impurities like a contaminant of your feet is not as complicated. We know how to do do those things right so yeah if you think I will do. I will take a flu out from a stack right or the exhaust of my car and put it into an electrolyzer will be very expensive. But at the scales I think at which we need to make fuels and chemicals using electrified technologies I think there are ways that you can. Treat the feet right so at least you clean it up a little bit. The way that we operate is if the field is deleted right if you have a mixture of CO2 and an order of gas right so then you increase the pressure. There's also something I think it's that people miss a little bit that they say ambient temperature and low pressure is good. But the reality is that it's not true I mean if you're reacting gases right you will not take you will not pipe gases that are not very pressure because. Your pipes the diameter will grow enormously and it will be very expensive right so. Anything that will transform CO2 probably will operate at high pressure because you will have to pipes a lot of CO2 from some more right that we already press your eyes. So yeah I think the thing we get locked a little bit into neutral pH is good ambient temperature is good low pressure is good. Right but the reality is that industrially for gases high pressure is better. I mean temperature high temperature depends how much recovery hit recovery you want to do and neutral pH there is no electrolytes or catalyst that operate a neutral pH because you need to move ions between your cathode and your anode so you need protons or hydroxyls that are the best conductors. But the fundamental electro catalysis we get trapping what some reasonable point. Yeah it's just really interesting you bring up these points because these are sort of maybe misconceptions assumptions that are made without clear basis in a literature or in like maybe not even a literature but like you said industrially like what makes sense for the process and it reminds me of. The Gordon conference in catalysis from a few years ago when Kathy Tway was talking about metals used in catalysis and she was talking about how using platinum and palladium is not necessarily so bad because they can be easily recovered. And that's something that it's like the conventional wisdom is you know you want to avoid precious metals completely but maybe in a real industrial process it's not such a bad thing if you can recover them. Yeah I think there is a little bit of a disconnect between what what we think is good right and what sounds reasonable and then what industry would actually care about right there. So I teach the process design and my students we take them to through the process of building an ammonia plant and an ethylene plant and they work in groups of 18 students fine and then they they want to do green hydrogen they want to do electro chemistry now we have some electrified projects as well. But they they I always try to tell them I think it's important to recognize at least how is it that we have skill up industrial production processes fine because there is a lot of good engineering there and there is a lot of common sense that tells you well maybe what you're doing in fundamental research actually doesn't make a lot of sense. See you to like the catalyst right they make maybe ethylene at atmospheric pressure but then once you start increasing the pressure then maybe the product selectivity changes to formator something different right. But most likely industrial you will have to operate those catalysts that under under high pressure right so then a lot of insights that you gain in in atmospheric conditions right might not. Might not end up translated into an industrial set up in 10 20 years but that doesn't mean that it's bad it's there's many a lot of value but not there. So so I'm kind of curious going back to the job and and is there anything about being a professor that surprised you other than you know delays with renovations anything about the job that you just never really thought about never really realized. Until you were in the chair doing it. Yeah I mean the fact that that you have impact on the students particularly I think they undergrad undergrad students right. That you can set them up to be successful right if that's take requires a lot of effort from an instructor right. But I think you can have a positive impact in in in in their life that I think if you train them well right if you it's okay to be a little bit rigorous right and try to to stir them in a path that you think that will prepare them better right that is something I did not know that you can have so much of an impact a good instructor can have a big impact. A bad interactive kind of a bad impact right but I think as a department at least you're looking at the average right you will hope to that that as a whole at least in a chemical engineering program right that you train your undergrad as well. And that that I think is very that's okay I didn't realize right that you can have such a. an impact on your students, right? - Mm-hmm. - Enjoy your language. - So I'm curious. Talked a little bit of science. What kind of new emerging areas do you find, particularly exciting? What new emerging areas are you reading about right now? - Yeah, I've been looking at Electrochemical separations. - Yeah, that seems to be a hot new area. - That's a lot of interest. - That's very common rules. - So I think, yeah, just as everybody else, right? Nitrogen, electrochemistry that I had no, I didn't want to touch ammonia, because there is a lot of issues, let's say, with doing quantification, nitrogen to ammonia, right? But now we have reactors that allow us to go to do electrochemistry and I had a hundred bars, right? So then I think then you can get rid of a little bit of issues of solubility and bring in gases to an electrode and then produce large amounts of products. And nitrogen is something that I have been looking at a little bit more. I think scallop, it's something that interests me. I've been also doing methane steam reforming, electrochemical methane steam reforming. That's a hard one. - Yeah. - So anything that has to do with methane, I think it's something. - It's a harder way than it stays. - Yeah, but I actually, but I do think that long-term, right? And in a transition, energy transition, you do need carbon. This is gonna be ignored many times, right? That we do need large sources of carbon atoms if we're gonna do anything, right? And there are still resources like natural gas, where you can do steam reforming, take the hydrogen out, you have CO2 and then that CO2, you can use it to do other things, right? - Absolutely. - Yeah, so that's something that also interests me. But I tried to master the scallop is the topic of the lab. And how do you think of fundamental perspective and how to scale up systems, right? - It seems like your expertise in reactor design mass transfer would be really useful for looking at these electrochemical separations technologies. And that's become a real area. I've been trying to think if I can do anything in that area, but I'm such an electrode surface guy that I don't know, I'm trying to figure out what I can bring to that ballpark, but I haven't figured that out yet. But I've also been a little bit interested in the nitrogen, electric chemistry. What I find interesting, I don't know if it makes technological or economic sense at all, but I do find this idea of carbon nitrogen coupling on the surface interesting, just from a scientific perspective, how can you design an electrode where you can efficiently make those carbon nitrogen bonds or functionalize a hydrocarbon? And I think that's pretty interesting. - Yeah, I think I just had a not so positive experience because we were doing CO2 reduction and nitrate reduction at the same time. And then we decided to see some missing parakefishing, and then we started chasing some products, and then we figured out that it seems that we were making glycerol. And I think in the nitrogen is creating some new magic pathway to go from CO2 to C3s and turns out that the pH meter that the student was using was leaking glycerol. (laughs) - Wow, wow, I also had a really bad experience like that. Well, it was my very first beginning of my PhD, I was using these polycarbonate reactors. And when you machine polycarbonate, it's kind of brittle and it cracks a lot, and I was cleaning it with IPA, all these different alcohols, and then doing CO2 reduction and detecting all these alcohols. And wow, I made this new catalyst, and I told my advise, they're like, oh, I think it's working, and it's making all these C3 alcohols. This is crazy. And he got really excited and turned out, that was just rinse solvent, figured that out pretty quickly, luckily. And I remember I was a little, I didn't think much of it at the time, and I remember the postdoc kind of pulled me aside, and after I figured it out, and he said, you know, you're gonna be in trouble when you tell the boss about this, like he's gonna, you know, and I was like, oh, and I got a little nervous. I hadn't really thought that he would be mad, and then I got a little nervous to tell him, but when I told him he didn't care, he was like, oh, okay, yeah. Next one. - It was next. (laughing) - Yeah, and these things, it's like part of a PhD education making these mistakes, and learning this, what happens badly. - How does that work out, yeah. - Yeah, you know, I think so, because of that experience, and when I hear carbon nitrogen, once I think I know it again. (laughing) - Yeah, I had an effort in that area, but I diverted, I'm not working on that actively now, but it's still fun and interesting. - So we're almost at a time here, and at the end, we like to hear about the person behind the professor, you know, when you're not thinking about scaling up reactors and electrochemical systems, what do you do in your free time, if you have any? - I have my daughter, I'm a boy, so we 11 and nine years old, so then whatever they want to do. So my job is driving them to school, then taking them to different sports, different activities. So I enjoy that very much, but that consumes all the other time, and then sitting down and watching movies with them, sometimes I fall asleep, but. (laughing) - Yeah, so I think when my kids, they have to swim here on Saturdays, that you see, but they swim at different times. So then while my daughter is swimming, then with the boy, we watch Pokemon. So he's into Pokemon, so then that has been like a big. So to sit down and watch Pokemon with your kids, so. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's my. Spend my time with the kids and my wife, yeah. - That's great, I'm sure. - Yeah, well thank you so much for joining us today and coming on PodCat and sharing some of your experiences and your story really, thanks a lot. - Okay, thank you very much for the invitation. - PodCat, signing off. (gentle music) (gentle music)