Alexander Al-Zubeidi

Bio: I’m passionate about research and technology transfer for decarbonization. I completed my undergraduate and Master’s at Imperial College London, developing automated electrochemical techniques to find new ways for environmentally friendly copper extraction from copper ores advised by Tim Albrecht. I received my Ph.D. in chemistry at Rice University advised by Stephan Link, where I developed techniques and mechanisms for plasmon-enhanced photo-electrochemical catalysis. At Stanford, I am scaling photo-electrochemical catalysis for real-world applications. I am passionate about sustainability and industrial decarbonization, frequently participating in workshops and classes. I teach a class on solar energy conversion and storage in the Fall. In my free time, I enjoy road trips, hiking, and cooking.

Accelerator Project: Photo-electrochemical CO2 conversion into high-value chemicals using intermittent electricity.
Utilizing intermittent renewable electricity for CO2 conversion offers the opportunity to transform CO2 into high-value products. Electrolyzers need to ramp up rapidly to take advantage of periods of low-cost, low-carbon electricity and must be modular to enable deployment from kilowatt to gigawatt scales. Current electrolyzers operate at large scales with high capacity factors and usually produce products that require additional thermal processing and are therefore incompatible with intermittent and modular deployment. I am developing a modular electrolyzer that converts CO2 into ethylene capable of being rapidly turned on and off. Utilizing plasmon excitation, the photo-electrochemical electrolyzer achieves high turnover and high ethylene selectivity. The electrolysis product, ethylene, serves as a fundamental building block for polymers, plastics, and commodity chemicals, thus up-cycling and storing CO2 long-term.

Flagship Destination: Greenhouse Gas Removal

Advisor: Jennifer Dionne - Materials Science and Engineering