Melissa Oum

BEng. (Hons) in Chemical Engineering, University of Leeds 

MEng. (Hons) in Chemical Engineering, University of Leeds

After graduating in 2014 from The University of Leeds, Melissa spent a year in Industry as trainee chemical engineer. She then decided to pursue her doctoral research in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Fuel Cells with Professor Robert Steinberger-Wilckens.

Interconnects are important components of SOFCs due to their essential functions of current collector and electrodes physical separator. These roles explain the importance and sensitivity of the relation between the interconnect and adjacent components and restricts the possibilities of materials that can be used. Coated chromia-forming alloys are the current state-of-the-art materials being used as interconnects, but suffer from excessive oxidation rates detrimental to the interconnect electrical conductivity and adjacent cathode functioning.  Melissa’s approach is used thermodynamic and kinetic models coupled with experiments to provide an understanding of these degradation mechanisms and predict the service life of substrates.  By using modelling, constraints such as experimental time are reduced and flexibility over variables and parameters is greatly enhanced. 

Melissa enjoys participating in renewable energy outreach activities and has held a fuel cell stand at the University of Birmingham community day during summer 2015 to raise awareness on the technology, but also to promote the Centre for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research.

Outside her research, Melissa is an active volunteer at the Birmingham Food Bank and enjoys writing. Her essay on “How does engineering contribute to the UK economy” was highly commended for the Engineering professor council 2014 student competition.