Xin Qian

Xin Qian is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (advisor: Prof. Meilin Liu) in the United States. He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Northwestern University (advisor: Prof. Sossina M. Haile) in 2021 after earning an M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2016 and a B.S. in Materials Physics from Dalian University of Technology in 2013 in China, graduating with the honor of ‘Outstanding Graduates’. His research encompasses solid state oxides and metallic materials for renewable energy storage and clean fuel production applications via electrochemical and thermochemical approaches. After his M.S. research on lithium-ion batteries, during which he developed an alternative electrodeposition technique for the preparation of large-area silicon anodes, he joined Prof. Haile’s lab at Northwestern University and developed novel nonstoichiometric perovskite oxides for solar-driven thermochemical production of hydrogen fuel, with a focus on understanding the fundamental correlation of the structural characteristics, redox thermodynamics, and reaction kinetics of nonstoichiometric oxides to the thermochemical fuel evolution rates. In addition to the remarkable thermochemical hydrogen productivity that he achieved using perovskite oxides, he developed novel protocols for the experimental assessment of redox thermodynamic properties of solids by thermogravimetric analysis, achieving increased accuracy. To date, he has (co)authored 15 technical papers in respected journals (e.g., Matter, Chem. Mater.) and delivered 2 presentations at international conferences. Following his Ph.D. studies, he starts a postdoctoral fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology and continues to explore alternative pathways for renewable energy storage using solid state ionic materials and devices, with a particular focus on developing a hybrid fuel cell system based on proton conductors for power generation and reversible hydrogen production.