Sohan Phadke (PhD candidate 2021-now)
After graduating cum laude in chemical engineering at TU Delft, Sohan joined the RELEASE consortium. Co-supervised by Prof. Wiebren de Jong he is working on alkaline water electrolysis with a twist. Instead of making oxygen, Sohan will try to make the more valuable hydrogen peroxide at the anode.
Wouter van der Does (PhD candidate 2021-now)
Wouter studied biotechnology in Wageningen, with an MSc thesis on modelling biochemical reactors and an internship at TNO simulating electrochemical CO2-reduction. He presently works at developing a computational multiscale model for alkaline water electrolysers.
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Jelmer Postma (PhD 2022-now)
Jelmer studied Materials Science at the TU Delft and Mechanical Engineering at the Hogeschool Utrecht. He did internships and projects at Flamco, Rhosonics Analytics, Umincorp, and the TU Delft. He will work on membraneless water electrolysis in the ambitious consortium MacGhyver (Microfluidic wAstewater treatment and Creation of Green HYdrogen Via Electrochemical Reactions) led by the Paris-based start-up Eden Tech.
Nikhikesh Kodur Venkatesh (PhD 2023-now)
Nikhilesh did a BSc in Mechanical Engineering in India and an MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering in Delft, with a thesis on CFD for wind energy. He will work on multi-phase/physics/scale simulations of bubble distributions near water electrodes within the Vidi project ‘hydrogen bubbles quantified’.
Gilles Deiters (PhD 2023-now)
Gilles studied Mechanical Engineering at the TU Delft. Currently, he works to quantify the bubbles generated during water electrolysis and to validate the group’s models through experiments. He works within the Vidi project “Quantifying hydrogen bubbles” supported by NWO, in collaboration with Veco, Magneto, ZEF, and Shell.
Ali Yahyaee (Postdoc 2024-now)
After graduating from Iran University of Science and Technology with a degree in multiphase CFD modelling of fuel cells, Ali continued as a PhD researcher at Aalborg University, Denmark. Here, he defended his thesis “Boiling Cooling Simulations: Accuracy and Efficiency Improvements Studies” in 2024, after which we welcomed him to Delft. Linkedin | Researchgate
Davide Bordignon (PhD 2025-now)
After a master’s degree in Energy Engineering and a continuation at the University of Padova, Italy, a research visit in the group of Antoni Forner Cuenca, at the TU Eindhoven, followed. Changing from redox flow batteries to water electrolysers, Davide will perform advanced simulations at the stack level, in the HyPRO consortium, co-supervised together with Prof. Johan Padding.
MSc Students
Dries Siegersma (2025) Minimizing Electrolyte Velocity in Membraneless Flow-Through Water Electrolysis: Influence of Electrode Geometry Parameters
Ko Dirkzwager (2025) The influence of different packings on gas-liquid separation and bubble coalescence
Marnix Klein (2024) Gas Hold-Up in Alkaline Water Electrolysis
An experimental study on maximum gas hold-up and slip velocity in gas hold-up modelling
Botond Polet (2024) Experimental Study of the Gravity-Fed Laminar Electrolyser
Towards Increased Flexibility and Product Purity, with Nico Valle
Bart de Rooij (2024) – Measurements of the influence of multiphase flow on shunt current resistance in alkaline water electrolysis
Alejandro Navarro Muñoz (2024) – Velocity profile measurements in a zero-gap alkaline water electrolyser, with Simone Dussi and Aviral Rajora (TNO)
Kevin Pardoel (2024) – The influence of flow shear on the bubble size and surface coverage in alkaline water electrolysis
Jeroen de Vries (2024) – Flow measurements in a bubble-induced natural recirculation alkaline water electrolysis cell
Vasiliki Papadopoulou (2024) – Gas Crossover in Small Gap Alkaline Electrolysers: A CFD Study on Bubble Generation and Gas Crossover Effects, with Nico Valle
Dirk Roest (2024) – Measuring and quantifying shunt currents in an alkaline water electrolyser shortstack
Lotte Vijverberg (2024) – Deactivation mechanisms and timescales of nickel electrodes in alkaline water electrolysis
Emile Craye (2023) – Bubble Quantification: in the near electrode region in alkaline water electrolysis
Hein Haverlag (2023) – Optical quantification of multiphase flow near a hydrogen-evolving electrode
Gilles Deiters (2023) – Minimizing bubble losses in membraneless flow-through water electrolysis
Kris Manna (2023) – Heat production in Alkaline Capillary-Fed Water Electrolysis
Mehmet Caner Pektas (2023) – Slug Flow Characterization in an Alkaline Water Electrolyzer for Hydrogen Production
Demetris Palochis (2023) – 1D multiphase flow modelling of a bubble-induced natural convection water electrolyser
Viraisha Bhoewar (2022) – Modelling the effects of adhered hydrogen bubbles on the overpotentials in water electrolysis
Mounir Roodenburg (2022) – Modelling dissolved gas concentration in alkaline water electrolysis
Ilco Krikke (2021) – Modeling the effect of dissolved gas on the bubble layer along a vertical gasevolving electrode
Tom Kleist (2021) – Characterisation of flow and bubble phenomena in a high pressure alkaline water electrolyser, with Jan van Kranendonk, Zero Emission Fuels, ZEF
lias Daniil (2021)- Transient modeling and control of a table-top electrolyzer, co-supervised with Jan van Kranendonk, Zero Emission Fuels, ZEF
Bas Lottman (2020) – Transient thermal and electrochemical modeling of alkaline water electrolysers, with Thijs de Groot (Nouryon and TU/e)
Max Doorn (2020) , 3D-electrodes for organic flow electrochemistry, with Roman Latsuzbaia, TNO
Niels Goos (2020) – Electrochemical reduction of CO2 to CO in a flow-through electrolyser
Xihé (Cipher) Li (2019), Modelling of buoyancy-driven circulating bubbly flow
Karthik Sriram (2019), Thermal and flow characterisation of a small scale alkaline electrolysis system for hydrogen production, with Jan van Kranendonk, Zero Emission Fuels, ZEF
Valerio Matrone (2018) : Visualization and analysis of different regimes in the flow over a porous electrolytic cell, cum laude, with Hadi Rajaei, Jerry Westerweel, Giovanni Paolo Romano (University Sapienza Rome)
Xiucheng (Roy) Huang: COMSOL modeling of gas-diffusion electrodes for CO2 reduction, with Johan Padding (internship from university of Twente, with Bastian Mei)
Nitish Gadgill (2018) : Modeling a Flow-Cell for Electrochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Formate, cum laude, with Anca Anastasopol, TNO
Guus de Koning (2018): Modelling the influence of morphology on electrochemical reduction of CO2 on silver nanowire electrodes, with David Vermaas.
Wouter Maks (BSc thesis): 1D Simulation of Hydrogen Electrolysis using Porous Electrodes, with Mahinder Ramdin
Kaushik Prasad (2017), Modelling and study of critical losses in a hydrogen-bromine redox flow battery system, with Wiebrand Kout (Elestor) and Ludger Blum (FH Aachen)
Former group members
Anamika Ghosh (postdoc 2023-now)
Anamika completed her M.Tech-PhD dual degree at the Department of Physics, IIT Madras, India, with a thesis centred on ‘magnetic nanocomposites for electrochemical biosensing and energy applications’. In her postdoctoral research, she investigated the impact of magnetic field and pulsed potential on (AEM) electrolysers.
Joseph Blake (PhD candidate 2019-2025)
Joe studied mathematics and physics at Warwick University. In co-supervision with Prof. Johan Padding, he worked on three-dimensional modelling of catalyst layers in gas diffusion electrodes for CO2 reduction. After developing a 1D analytical model, he worked on 2D computational models of microfluidic cells.
Sofen Kumar Jena (postdoc 2023-2024)
Sofen studied Mechanical Engineering and has extensive experience with CFD, particularly Ansys Fluent, in both industry and academia. He worked on turbulent multiphase simulations of large-scale water electrolysis in collaboration with McPhy.
LinkedIn | Researchgate | Scholar.google | Website
Nicolas Valle Marchante (postdoc 2021-2023)
After a Mechanical Engineering MSc at UC Irvine, Nico returned to the University of Catalunya for a PhD in computational multiphase flow. After a postdoc at the University of Groningen, he worked on the ECCM project “Better Electrodes for Water Electrolysis” to develop a multiscale multiphase multiphysics model.
LinkedIn | Researchgate | Scholar.google | Website
Araz Sheibani Aghdam (postdoc 2022-2023)
Araz studied Materials Science at the University of Tehran and did a PhD at Sabanci University in Istanbul, with a short exchange at EPFL, Lausanne. He worked on developing better electrodes for water electrolysis.
Aviral Rajora (PhD candidate 2018-2023)
After completing the fluids and solids mechanics track at the Delft University of Technology, Aviral did a PhD project in mathematical modelling of multiphase flows in electrochemical cells. After a thorough study of liquid and gas diffusion layers in electrolysers and fuel cells, he focused on modelling bubble plumes near the electrodes in water electrolysis. His work involved using COMSOL to gain physical insights from numerical models and to develop simplified analytical models.
PhD Thesis| LinkedIn | Researchgate | Scholar.google
Abhiroop Bhadra (2020-2023)
Abhiroop graduated from Delft with a thesis on turbulent pulsatile pipe flows. He started his research within the EU H2020 Melody project on modelling membraneless hydrogen-bromine redox flow batteries.
Andrea Mangel Raventos (2017-2021)
Supervised by Ruud Kortlever and collaborating with Fokko Mulder, Andrea collaborated in the area of multi-physics modelling of the battolyser concept.
Hadi Rajaei (post-doctoral researcher 2018-2021)
After completing a PhD in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection at Eindhoven University of Technology, Hadi works as a postdoctoral researcher in alkaline water electrolysis. In addition to fundamental experimental studies of microporous separators and more innovative electrode designs, he also thoroughly examined the feasibility and potential of membraneless designs.
Linkedin | Researchgate
