Kjeang: Top PhD grad working to perfect fuel cells

Eleven years ago, Dr. Erik Kjeang was a high school student in Sweden doing his final project on Ballard fuel cells. He never guessed he’d one day be working for the Burnaby-based company that is one of the world leaders in the field.

Kjeang, who earned his PhD in mechanical engineering from UVic in November, will be receiving the Governor General’s Gold Medal at this month’s convocation ceremonies.

“I got home, and in my inbox there were suddenly five emails with ‘gold’ in the subject line,” Kjeang recalls with a laugh.

Since January, Kjeang has been working as a research engineer with Ballard. He helps develop their hydrogen fuel cell technology, which combines oxygen from air with hydrogen gas to generate electric current.

ayer of the fuel cell, which transports gases to the catalyst layer of the cell, where an electric current is generated.

“It’s always challenging to tweak the material to improve cell performance, because as you improve one performance characteristic, you may reduce the effectiveness of something else,” he explains.

After getting a master’s degree in energy engineering at the University of Umeå in northern Sweden, Kjeang knew he was passionate about fuel cells.

“I wanted to continue doing fuel cell research, and there wasn’t much in Sweden,” he said.

“When the opportunity came up to study at UVic, it was a pretty simple decision. The possibility to combine cutting-edge fuel cell research with a great lifestyle and outdoor adventures fit me like a glove.”

At UVic, Kjeang designed microfluidic fuel cells—tiny power generators the size of a hair. While Ballard fuel cell stacks are powerful enough for automotive applications, it would take thousands of the tiny microfluidic fuel cell arrays to power a vehicle.

Kjeang designed and tested around 50 microfluidic fuel cells architectures, which are still sitting in a box at UVic. He said his doctoral work at UVic has benefitted him immensely at Ballard.

“I think doing your PhD is a great way to get exposed to research and to learn how to run your own research project,” Kjeang said. “You pick something that has a good chance of success, you work hard and you don’t give up—and hopefully it will bear fruit.”