The HOPE Group

The Future is Now – HydrOgen Production from the Earth’s subsurface (HOPE)

 News 

  • 10/31/2024, PhD student Keju Yan’s paper, entitled “Insights into reaction mechanisms: Water’s role in enhancing in-situ hydrogen production from methane conversion in sandstone”, has been accepted by the Journal of Energy Chemistry. Congratulations!
  • 10/24/2024, PhD student Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s abstract, entitled “Mechanistic Control and Optimization of Hydrogen Production via Cyclic Air-steam Injection in Heavy Oil Reservoirs”, has been accepted to be presented in the 2025 SPE Western Regional Meeting.
  • 10/22/2024, first-year PhD student Mr. Ishak Zakaria Madani won the Academic Scholarship from the International Association of Drilling Contractors. Congratulations!
  • 10/18/2024, PhD student Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s paper, entitled “Governing Chemical Reactions and Mechanisms of Hydrogen Generation During In-situ Combustion Gasification of Heavy Oil”, has been accepted by the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Congratulations!
  • 10/13/2024, PhD student Baizheng An’s paper, entitled “Deciphering Minerals in Reservoir Rocks as Natural Catalysts for In-Situ Methane-to-Hydrogen Conversion via Electromagnetic Heating”, has been published by International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Link). Congratulations!
  • 10/09/2024, Dr. Yuan has been awarded the Emerging Inventor of the Year at Texas Tech University (Link). Congratulations to The Hope Group!
  • 10/09/2024, PhD student Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s paper, entitled “Kinetic Modeling of Hydrogen Generation via In-situ Combustion Gasification of Heavy Oil”, has been published on Energy & Fuel (Link). Congratulations!
  • 10/08/2024, PhD student Ishak Zakaria Madani begins to serve as the Regional Director of Africa in the Early Career Network of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy.
  • 10/01/2024, undergraduate student Adkham Izbassar won the Campus Access and Engagement Scholarships at Texas Tech University. Congratulations!
  • 09/24/2024, Dr. Yuan and PhD students (Mohamed Amine Ifticene, Keju Yan, Baizheng An, and Ping Song) attended the SPE ATCE conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Amine and Keju presented their work on in-situ, carbon-zero hydrogen production from petroleum reservoirs. Good job!
  • 08/15/2024, the Regional Initiative for Technical Assistance Partnerships (RITAP) – Permian Basin project is selected by the Department of Energy. This project focuses on the basin-scale carbon transport and storage and community engagement in the Permian Basin. Dr. Yuan serves as a Co-PI on this project. Details can be found here and here. Congratulations to The Hope Group and the TTU’s Department of Petroleum Engineering!
  • 08/15/2024, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan’s paper, entitled “Iron-Sandstone Synergy: Advancing In-situ Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas via Electromagnetic Heating”, has been published on the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Link). Congratulations!
  • 07/05/2024, Dr. Yuan’s proposal, entitled “Incubating Next Generation Clean Energy Scientists and Engineers Through Minority-Scholar Exchange and In-Situ Hydrogen Production Research”, is officially funded by the Department of Energy (Link and Link). This project is led by Texas Tech University with partners from Texas A&M University, Howard University, and University at Buffalo. Congratulations to The Hope Group! 
  • 06/27/2024, PhD student Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s abstract, entitled “Simulation of Cyclic Steam-Air Injection for In-Situ Hydrogen Production from Heavy Oil Reservoirs”, was accepted by the International Petroleum Technology Conference to be held 18-20 February 2025, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • 06/16/2024, PhD student Mr. Baizheng An’s paper, entitled “Characterizing Thermal Runaway of Reservoir Rocks under Electromagnetic Irradiation Towards Hydrogen Generation from Petroleum Reservoirs”, has been published by the Applied Thermal Engineering (Link). Congratulations!
  • 05/12/2024, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan starts the 3-month’s intern at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) working on in-situ hydrogen production research. We thank The CH Foundation for supporting this research and also thank LANL for collaborating on this project.  
  • 05/09/2024, Dr. Yuan and PhD students (Ping Song, Baizheng An, Keju Yan, and Mohamed Amine Ifticene) attended the award ceremony at the Petroleum Club of Midland to receive several SPE awards. Congratulations to the awardees and The Hope Group!
  • 05/06/2024, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan’s abstract, entitled “Energy Efficiency of In-situ Carbon-zero Hydrogen from Natural Gas Using Electromagnetic-assisted Catalytic Heating” (SPE-221063), was accepted by the 2024 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) to be held 23 – 25 September 2024, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Congratulations to Keju! This is 100th anniversary of the ATCE!
  • 05/06/2024, PhD student Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s abstract, entitled “Kinetic Modeling of Hydrogen Generation Via In-situ Combustion Gasification of Heavy Oil” (SPE-220862), was accepted by the 2024 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) – Hydrogen Session. This conference will be held 23 – 25 September 2024, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Congratulations to Amine and co-authors! This is 100th anniversary of the ATCE!
  • 05/03/2024, News release published on the Texas Tech Now for the visit of Dr. Douglas Wicks and his team from ARPA-E, entitled “Texas Tech Researchers are Working to Find Low-Cost Energy Options“. We sincerely thank ARPA-E for supporting our research on carbon-free hydrogen production from the Earth’s subsurface. The super insightful seminar given by Dr. Wicks can be found here. “THE FUTURE, can you unlock it?” — Wicks asked. “Yes, we can.” — The Hope Group. 
  • 05/01/2024, PhD student Mr. Silagi Wanambwa starts an intern at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) working on carbon-negative geologic hydrogen production from the Earth’s subsurface. The Hope Group thanks LANL for supporting this exciting collaborative research.
  • 05/01/2024, Congratulations to PhD student Mr. Keju Yan for wining the Outstanding Organization Member Award at Texas Tech University!
  • 04/26/2024, Congratulations to PhD student Mr. Keju Yan for wining the Arlen Edgar Presidential Scholarship from the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)! Great achievement!
  • 04/26/2024, Congratulations to four PhD students who won the SPE Permian Basin Scholarship – Ms. Ping Song, Mr. Silagi Wanambwa, Mr. Baizheng An, and Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene! Great achievements!
  • 04/26/2024, Dr. Yuan has been selected to receive the SPE Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award. Congratulations to The Hope Group! 
  • 04/23/2024, Welcome three students joining The Hope Group – PhD student Mr. Precious Opoku, Master student Mr. Michael Angelo Kyei, and undergraduate student Mr. Adkham Izbassar. 
  • 04/17/2024, PhD student Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene presented his work, entitled “Mechanisms of Hydrogen Generation During In-situ Combustion Gasification of Heavy Oil”, on the SPE Western Regional Meeting, Palo Alto, California, USA, April 2024 (Link).
  • 04/11/2024, Natural hydrogen is entering a new phase! Natural Hydrogen is now recognized as an important topic by the International Energy Agency’s Hydrogen Technology Collaboration Program – IEA TCP Task 49 (Link and Link). Dr. Yuan serves as a committee member in this task and will collaborate with the world-class researchers to develop the roadmap for natural hydrogen in the future two years. Congratulations to the team!
  • 04/09/2024, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan received the AAPG Foundation Grants-in-Aid Award. Congratulations!
  • 03/28/2024, welcome Dr. Douglas Wicks, the Program Director at ARPA-E, and his colleagues to visit Texas Tech University and The Hope Group to discuss the GeoH2 project on stimulated natural hydrogen production. We are super excited to start this project and develop the carbon-free hydrogen production technology. The Future is Now!
  • 03/06/2024, PhD students Mr. Keju Yan’s and Mr. Baizheng An’s paper, entitled “Natural catalysis-based clean hydrogen production from shale oil: An in-situ conversion enabled by electromagnetic heating”, was published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Link). Congratulations!
  • 03/05/2024, PhD student Keju Yan won the 2nd place in the Southwestern Petroleum Short Course (SWPSC) Poster Contest at the graduate level. Congratulations! 
  • 02/12/2024, PhD student Keju Yan presented the work, entitled “Characterizing Thermal Runaway of Reservoir Rocks Under Electromagnetic Irradiation Towards Hydrogen Generation from Petroleum Reservoirs”, on the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 2024.
  • 02/08/2024, Dr. Yuan’s proposal, entitled “Enhanced Hydrogen Production through Chemo-Bio-Physical Stimulations – with a View to Pilot Development”, was selected by ARPA-E (Link, Link, and Link). A big milestone! Congratulations to The Hope Group!
  • 02/05/2024, Dr. Yuan gave an online seminar to graduate students in the Department of Chemical & Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wyoming, entitled “In-situ HydrOgen Production from PEtroleum Reservoirs (HOPE)”.
  • 01/12/2024, The Hope Group held the Annual Review Meeting to summarize the achievements in 2023 and plan the research for 2024.
  • 12/11/2023, PhD student Silagi Wanambwa presented a poster, entitled “Stimulated mechanisms for engineered natural hydrogen production from ultramafic rock-water interactions”, in AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California, December 11-15, 2023.
  • 12/11/2023, Master student Anton Kaiser presented a poster, entitled “Geochemical Modeling of Serpentinization Processes with Implications for Natural Hydrogen Exploration”, in AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California, December 11-15, 2023, San Francisco, California.
  • 12/11/2023, Dr. Yuan serves as chair and co-chair during the 2023 American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference on natural hydrogen (Oral session and Poster session) and underground storage of energy and carbon (Oral session and Poser session) in San Francisco, California, 12/11/2023 – 12/15/2023.
  • 11/28/2023, PhD student Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s abstract, entitled “Mechanism of hydrogen generation during in-situ combustion gasification of heavy oil” (SPE-218902),  is accepted as a conference paper and will be presented on the SPE Western Regional Meeting to be held 16-18 April 2024 in Palo Alto, California, USA. Congratulations to Amine!
  • 11/03/2023, Dr. Yuan gave a seminar to graduate students in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at University of Houston, entitled “In-situ HydrOgen Production from PEtroleum Reservoirs (HOPE)”.
  • 10/20/2023, Congratulations to the PhD student Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene for wining the Graduate Research Support Award from Graduate School at Texas Tech University!
  • 10/15/2023, PhD student Mohamed Amine Ifticene’s paper, entitled “Fueling a Carbon-Zero Future: Igniting Hydrogen Production from Petroleum Reservoirs via In-Situ Combustion Gasification”, has been published on the Energy Conversion and Management (Impact factor: 10.4) (Link). Congratulations! 
  • 09/22/2023, PhD student Ms. Ping Song’s paper, entitled “Simulation of Hydrogen Generation via In-situ Combustion Gasification of Heavy Oil”, has been published on the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (Link). Congratulations! 
  • 09/20/2023, Argonne National Lab’s Techno-Economic Analysis concluded that hydrogen production method proposed by the The Hope Process (HydrOgen production from PEtroleum reservoirs using electromagnetic-assisted catalytic heating approach) would cost between $0.86 – $1.47 per Kg Hydrogen. The news and report can be found here and here. The Hope Group is collaborating with TerraVent Environmental Inc. to further develop this technology. Any interest in collaborating on this technology is welcome. 
  • 09/15/2023, Dr. Yuan’s proposal is funded by the National Science Foundation. This project focuses on hydrogen production from depleted sandstone reservoirs using electromagnetic-assisted catalytic heating approach. Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 08/22/2023, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan presented his work, entitled “Enabling Hydrogen Production from Shale Oil Reservoirs: An Experimental Study Using Microwave-Assisted Catalytic Heating” (SPE-215725), on the SPE Energy Transition Symposium, Houston, Texas, USA, 22-24, August 2023 (Link, Link). Congratulations to Keju.
  • 07/06/2023, Dr. Yuan’s proposal is funded by the ACS Petroleum Research Fund (Doctoral New Investigator Grant). The project focuses on elucidating dehydrogenation of shale oil on iron catalyst surface for clean hydrogen production. Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 07/01/2023, Dr. Yuan organized the first natural hydrogen session, entitled “Unravelling the Mystery of Natural Hydrogen Occurrence and Unlocking its Potential”, on the AGU fall meeting to be held in December 11-15, 2023 in San Francisco. The link for submitting an abstract can be found here: Link.
  • 06/19/2023, a PhD student Mr. Keju Yan begins an intern at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) working on hydrogen production from petroleum reservoirs towards his thesis research.
  • 05/15/2023, a master student Mr. Anton Kaiser begins to do a two-month intern at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) working on natural hydrogen towards his thesis research.
  • 04/22/2023, Mr. Mark Blue, the CTO of the TerraVent Environmental Inc., visited The Hope Group and discussed the collaborations on communalization of the in-situ hydrogen production from petroleum reservoirs using microwave-assisted catalytic heating technology.
  • 04/20/2023, Dr. Yuan serves as a part-time Special Advisor for Subsurface Hydrogen Production at TerraVent Environmental Inc.
  • 04/18/2023, Congratulations to PhD students Mr. Mohamed Amine Ifticene and Mr. Silagi Wanambwa for wining the SPE Permian Basin Scholarship!
  • 04/13/2023, Congratulations to PhD student Mr. Keju Yan for wining the Graduate Research Support Award from Graduate School at Texas Tech University!
  • 04/06/2023, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan’s abstract, entitled “Enabling hydrogen production from depleted shale oil reservoirs” (SPE-215725),  is accepted as a conference paper and will be presented on the SPE Energy Transition Symposium, Houston, Texas, USA, 22-24, August 2023. Congratulations to Keju.
  • 04/05/2023, Dr. Yuan co-authorized conference paper, entitled “A recurrent neural network-based solvent chamber estimation framework during warm solvent injection in heterogeneous reservoirs” (SPE-214984),  is accepted as a conference paper and will be presented on the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, USA, 16-18, October 2023. Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 04/05/2023, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan’s abstract, entitled “Unraveling the role of water in microwave-assisted catalytic hydrogen production from gas reservoirs” (SPE-214884), is accepted as a conference paper and will be presented on the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, USA, 16-18, October 2023. Congratulations to Keju.
  • 03/23/2023, Dr. Yuan’s patent, entitled “In-Situ Hydrogen Generation and Production from Petroleum Reservoirs” (serial No. PCT/US2022/044109), is published online in The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 03/20/2023, Dr. Yuan’s patent, entitled “In-Situ Hydrogen Generation and Production from Petroleum Reservoirs” (serial No. PCT/US2022/044109), won the Daneshy International Award for Best Invention on Energy Transition in the Ershaghi Center for Energy Transition (E-CET) at The University of Southern California. Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 02/12/2023, The mass spec (MAX300-IG Industrial Gas Analyzer, Extrel) has been successfully calibrated. This equipment is capable of analyzing the composition of the effluent gases from our microwave reactor system and in-situ combustion system in a real time with three seconds interval for one group of data points. The results are super nice. PhD student Keju Yan did a good job!
  • 01/06/2023, The Hope Group had a group meeting discussing the goals of the group, expectations, resources that students need from supervisor, and how to be more successful for students and the whole group.
  • 01/04/2023, PhD student Mr. Keju Yan’s paper, entitled “Microwave-Enhanced Methane Cracking for Clean Hydrogen Production in Shale Rocks”, has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Congratulations!
  • 11/10/2022, The Hope Group starts to collaborate with Argonne National Laboratory on the Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for the technology in-situ microwave/electromagnetic-assisted catalytic heating for hydrogen production from petroleum reservoirs. This collaboration is supported by the H-Prize fund from DOE.
  • 10/18/2022, PhD student Ms. Ping Song’s abstract, entitled “Hydrogen Generation from Heavy Oils via In-Situ Combustion Gasification” (SPE-212986),  is accepted as a conference paper and will be presented on the SPE Western Regional Meeting, Anchorage, Alaska, USA, 21-23, May 2023.
  • 10/11/2022, Dr. Yuan’s proposal is selected as a winner in the competition for the H-Prize: Hydrogen Shot Incubator Propose! Phase (Link, Link). This prize is one of the American-Made Prizes, administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is jointly funded by the DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office and the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. Congratulations to The Hope Group.
  • 10/03/2022, Keju Yan presented his work on 2022 SPE ATCE conference in Houston, entitled “Microwave‐Assisted Catalytic Heating for Enhanced Clean Hydrogen Generation from Methane Cracking in Shale Rocks”.
  • 09/25/2022, Dr. Yuan’s paper is published on Chemical Engineering Science, Vol. 263, 118060 (2022), entitled “Fluid retention on miscible viscous fingering of finite slices in porous media with dead-end pores” (Link).
  • 09/15/2022, Dr. Yuan’s paper is published on Physics of Fluids, Vol. 34, 092109 (2022), entitled “New phase diagram of miscible viscous fingering instabilities in porous media with dead-end pores” (Link).
  • 09/12/2022, Dr. Yuan invited Dr. Viacheslav Zgonnik, the CEO of Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC (NH2E), to give an online talk entitled “Natural Hydrogen – The Next Source of Energy” through the Early Career Network of International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy (IPHE). The webinar will start at 8 am CDT time on October 5, 2022. The flyer can be downloaded here and the registration link is: https://evt.to/ausudeauw.
  • 08/16/2022, Mohamed Amine Ifticene joins The Hope Group as a PhD student. 
  • 08/15/2022, Anton Kaiser starts to work as a Master student in The Hope Group. 
  • 08/12/2022, Silagi Wanambwa joins The Hope Group as a PhD student.
  • 08/10/2022, Dr. Yuan gives a talk entitled “New Energy Sources: Clean and Economic Hydrogen Production from Subsurface” to the Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center (HDIAC) (Link).
  • 08/10/2022, Baizheng An (PhD student) and Daniel Solorzano (undergraduate student) published a paper on Energies entitled “Viscous Fingering Dynamics and Flow Regimes of Miscible Displacements in a Sealed Hele-Shaw Cell” (Link).
  • 07/06/2022, Dr. Yuan received an award from The CH Foundation, 01/2023 – 12/2024.
  • 07/05/2022, Dr. Yuan is featured as a Subject Matter Expert in Alternative Energy by the Homeland Defense & Security (Link).
  • 05/21/2022, Dr. Yuan accepted the invitation to be an Associate Editor in journal Petroleum Science and Technology (Link).
  • 05/14/2022, Dr. Yuan published a paper on International Journal of Hydrogen Energy entitled “Hydrogen Generation in Crushed Rocks Saturated by Crude Oil and Water Using Microwave Heating” (Link).
  • 04/06/2022, Congratulations on the acceptance of the paper entitled “Microwave-assisted Catalytic Heating for Enhanced Clean Hydrogen Generation from Methane Cracking in Shale Rocks” by Keju Yan, Qingwang Yuan, Xiangyu Jie, Xiaoqiang Li, Juske Horita, and Jacob Stephens, for presentation at the 2022 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) to be held 3 – 5 October 2022 in Houston, Texas, USA.