PhD Studentship: Technology Qualification of Electrolysers

The goal of this project is to evaluate and mitigate technological risks associated with electrolysers to ensure their safe and efficient deployment at an industrial scale.

Electrolysers may play an important role in the future energy system. However, the necessary adoption of electrolysers has been slow, limiting the accumulated relevant operational experience for confidence in the technology. Thus, prospective project developers are faced with technological risks concerning safety such as gas cross over within stacks, and performance such as efficiency decrease due to degradation, and inability to operate flexibly. This project, conducted in collaboration with SSE plc, will look to understand these, and other risks associated with electrolysers, propose, execute and evaluate activities that will improve confidence that these technologies are qualified for industrial scale deployment.

The research will involve comprehensive performance, qualification and safety tests on electrolyser single cells and short stacks to benchmark and to understand degradation behaviour according to efficiency, performance, useful lifetime and safety requirements. Additional tests will be developed and used to verify that the electrolysers operate safely and reliably while fulfilling the intended specifications. The knowledge gained from the experiments will be used to determine the appropriate risk and reliability analysis methodology to better understand the safety and performance risks. Finally, multiscale simulations will be used to map learnings from laboratory-based systems (up to10 kW) to predict the behaviour and performance of industrial systems (up to 100 MW+).

You will receive specialist training through the Engineering Hydrogen Net Zero CDT and be based at Loughborough University.

Primary supervisor Sonya Calnan is happy to discuss this opportunity via email s.calnan@lboro.ac.uk.

Supervisors:

Name of primary supervisor: Prof Sonya Calnan

Name(s) of secondary supervisor: Dr Sarah Dunnett

Entry requirements:

Subject requirements: First-class or upper second-class degree (or equivalent) in Chemical/Process/Electrochemical/Mechanical/Electrical Engineering, Chemistry, or Physics, or relevant industrial experience. 

English language requirements:

Applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements. Further details are available on the International website.

Funding information:

The studentship is for 4 years and provides a tax-free stipend of £20,780 per annum for the duration of the studentship and includes tuition fees at the UK rate.

Excellent International candidates are eligible for a full international fee waiver however due to UKRI funding rules, no more than 30% of the studentships funded by this grant can be awarded to International candidates. 

How to Apply

All applications should be made online via the above ‘Apply’ button. Under ‘campus’ please select *Loughborough* and select the programme ‘CDT Engineering Hydrogen Net Zero’. Please quote the advertised reference number *LU-EnerHy-2025-1* under the ‘Finance’ section of the application.

To avoid delays in processing your application, please ensure that you submit the minimum supporting documents, including a copy of your passport. The following selection criteria will be used by academic schools to help them make a decision on your application.

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