Vinod Janardhanan is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad.

Fuel Cells and Electrolyzers Our fuel cell research is primarily focused on multi-scale modeling of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) and high temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFCs). Specifically we are looking at the development of kinetic models for predicting the performance and degradation of SOFCs and HT-PEMFCs that are operated on contaminated fuels such as H2S in the case of SOFCs and CO in the case of HT-PEMFCs. In addition to studying the effect of fuel contamination on cell performance, we are also studying other degradation mechanisms in both these cell types. SOFCs and PEMFCs are basically used for high power density applications, however, there are several applications that require power only in milli-watts rage. In this respect we are exploring paper based fuel cells and laminar flow fuel cells by performing experiments. There is a growing interest for reverse operating the SOFCs to electrolyse H2O and CO2. Our work on electrolysis is aimed at the development of electrochemical models for CO2 electrolysis and co-electrolysis of CO2 and H2O. This is tightly integrated with our ongoing work on SOFC. Heterogeneous Catalysis Our current interest is in studying the catalytic conversion of hydrocarbon fuels and the associated catalyst deactivation phenomena. We focus our research on developing detailed kinetic models for predicting the time on stream catalyst deactivation and product selectivity. We collect the data required to develop the models by performing experiments under well defined conditions, and perform multiscale modeling of the catalytic reactor for validating the kinetic models. Another aspect of our catalyst research is the conversion of CO2 to fuel and chemicals. India being a country with no scope of geological sequestration of CO2, the only option left is the conversion of CO2 into value added chemicals and fuels.