Ben Meekins
Research Assistant Professor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering
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Dr. Meekins is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Meekins has a background in photovoltaics, solar fuel conversion, and catalysis. As a member of the Chemical Engineering department at the University of South Carolina, his research interests include the fabrication and characterization of membrane-electrode assemblies, electrochemical splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen, remediation of carbon dioxide to high-value products, and conversion of waste products to high-value feedstocks and fuels.
Contact
Office Location
Horizon 1 Building
541 Main Street, Room 111
Columbia, SC
Email
meekins@sc.edu
Research Interests
We seek economic ways to produce hydrogen gas at high purity and industrial scale. We are currently exploring oxidation of traditionally toxic chemicals like SO2, HCl, and HBr in PEM-style electrolyzers to remediate these waste materials into higher-value products while simulataneously producing pure hydrogen gas for use as fuel or reactant.
Global climate change caused by CO2 necessitates its remediation. We explore electrochemical conversion methods using polybenzimidazole (PBI) membranes in PEM-style electrolyzers.
Our fuel cell research includes all aspects of the devices, from catalyst inks to MEA fabrication to accelerated stress tests and characterization of single cell and short-stack hardware.
