Meet Huawei Huang is one of Cohort 2022 KAUST Postdoctoral Global Fellows with interest in sustainable hydrogen production which was the annual theme for the 2021 Call for applications.

Huawei received his PhD on Chemical Technology from Dalian University of Technology (DUT), China, and then moved to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) as a postdoctoral researcher and research assistant professor. His research focuses on the synthesis of functional materials for hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction involving in electrochemical water splitting.

“KAUST is a research institution with advanced research facilities and infrastructure and plenty of opportunities for personal and professional development. KAUST is the place to be for doing groundbreaking research while at the same time build your research career”, says Huawei.

With the fellowship funding Huawei will carry out independent research aiming to develop efficient and stable catalysts based on earth – abundant elements for reducing overpotentials in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at cathode and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at anode involved in seawater splitting. This will eventually result to the decreasing use of valuable freshwater resources, improving energy conversion efficiency, and reducing the cost of hydrogen production.

“My goal is to achieve sustainable hydrogen production through seawater electrolysis, which is a promising technology for the future, especially when paired with renewable power (e.g., solar and wind).”, Huawei mentions.

Huawei is working with KAUST Assistant Professor Huabin Zhang and is affiliated with the KAUST Catalysis Center (KCC).