Raj develops analytical and computational tools to understand underlying multi-scale reaction and transport phenomena while improving and optimizing the overall performance of emerging electrochemical technologies for energy storage, electrosynthesis, ion recovery, and desalination. Such problems tend to pose substantial modeling and simulation challenges: the wide disparity in spatiotemporal scales associated with different components of the system may induce tremendous computational costs, necessitating the development of efficient and scalable numerical algorithms in addition to physics-based techniques for model reduction.
Aug 2022 – Ongoing
CO2 Electro-reduction
Development, 3D simulation, and validation of a predictive continuum model for multi-phase transport and reactions in CO/CO2 reduction electrocatalysts with intermixed hydrophobic and hydrophilic phases.
Sep 2022 – Ongoing
Capacitive Deionization
Full-cell, multi-cycle simulations of flow-through-electrode capacitive deionization using porous electrode theory supplemented with electrode corrosion surface chemistry and full pH dynamics.
May 2021 – Ongoing
Multi-layered Cell Simulation
Development of a general simulation platform for multi-layered electrochemical cells with user-specifiable geometric, physical, chemical, and transport properties.
Sep 2017 – Sep 2023
Electrodialysis
Reduced-order modeling of electroconvection, a chaotic electro-hydrodynamic instability in electrolytes near perm-selective membranes, using computational tools and experimental data.
Arunraj Balaji-Wright, Ph.D. 