Dr. Maxime van der Heijden: Architected Porous Media for Electrochemical Flow Systems
Bio: Dr. Maxime van der Heijden is an Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, where she joined in January 2025. She earned her PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology in December 2023, focusing on the design of porous materials for redox flow batteries using modeling, imaging diagnostics, and advanced manufacturing. She then continued as a postdoctoral researcher at Eindhoven, working on additive manufacturing of flow battery electrodes. Her current research focuses on designing porous microstructures for electrolyzers and flow batteries by integrating imaging, machine learning, additive manufacturing, device testing, and computational design.
Abstract: Porous media form the backbone of electrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies, governing transport, reaction accessibility, and overall efficiency in redox flow batteries, electrolyzers, and fuel cells. Despite their central role, most porous electrodes and transport layers have remained largely unchanged for decades, relying on disordered structures that limit performance, durability, and cost reduction. Dr. van der Heijden’s research reimagines porous media as engineered components that can be deliberately designed rather than passively adopted. By integrating pore-scale modeling, operando imaging, computational optimization, and advanced manufacturing, her group uncovers fundamental structure–performance relationships and develops tailored architectures that reduce transport losses. This talk highlights how engineered porous microstructures can enable more efficient, robust, and scalable electrochemical energy systems.
Professor Jeff Gostick: Pore-scale modeling and design of porous materials
Bio: Professor Jeff Gostick is the Azzam-Dullien Professor of Transport in Porous Media and a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on understanding and designing electrochemical devices by directly linking electrode microstructure to transport and reaction phenomena at the pore scale. He is internationally recognized for pioneering pore-network and image-based modeling approaches for electrochemical systems. He is the founder and lead developer of the widely used open-source software tools OpenPNM and PoreSpy. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, attracting over 11,000 citations. In recognition of his contributions, he has received numerous honors, including the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering Emerging Leader Award and the Faculty of Engineering Research Excellence Award.
Abstract: Porous materials are ubiquitous in both natural and engineered systems, supporting a wide variety of physical processes from simple solute diffusion to salinity and shear-dependent coagulation of colloids. All these processes are overwhelmingly impacted by the pore structure. Pore scale modeling provides an unprecedented view into these processes and thus a chance for new insights. Among the available pore-scale modeling approaches, pore network modeling has the advantage of computational efficiency (at the expense of some fidelity), which opens up the possibility of using pore networks for both more elaborate scenarios and for structural optimization. This talk will focus on several applications of both possibilities, from modeling transient degradation of hydrogen fuel cell catalyst layers to generated network structures that are optimally suited to specific tasks. This latter application leverages recent developments in machine learning so represents a new frontier for pore scale modeling.
