Instructors
Vasilios I. Manousiouthakis, Distinguished Professor, UCLA Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department
Ioannis Manousiouthakis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Hydrogen Engineering
Research Company (H-E-R-C)
Demetri Terzopoulos, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor’s Professor, UCLA Computer
Science Department, Director, UCLA Computer Graphics & Vision Group
Prerequisites
Calculus
Cluster Description
HIGH SUCCESS is a cluster that focuses on issues standing at the top of societal agendas and being especially relevant to teens: Education, Environment, Economy, and Climate Change, https://ed.stanford.edu/news/what-do-teens-care-about-stanford-education-
researchers-uncover-top concerns-voiced-letters, which as will be shown in this cluster are
related to science and engineering concepts focused on Hydrogen, Sustainability, Carbon Capture (CC), and the Energy Transition.
The HIGH SUCCESS cluster’s instruction first educates students on sustainability and the concept of sustainizability®, a synthesis framing not only how systems are assessed for sustainability but how unsustainable systems may be made sustainable through allowable interventions (https://trademarks.justia.com/885/21/sustainizability-88521471.html). Since 1987, when the United Nations’ report “Our Common Future” characterized development as sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, there has been a dramatic increase in sustainability research aiming to define and assess whether a system is sustainable. Building from this report, the HIGH SUCCESS cluster ties historical perspectives to modern analysis and concrete engineering practice.
The second focal point of HIGH SUCCESS is Carbon Capture (CC). Climate science has long noted atmospheric forcing from carbonic acid. A foundational historical reference is Arrhenius’ 1896 publication “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground” in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, which stated: “The selective absorption of the atmosphere is … in a high degree by aqueous vapor and carbonic acid, which are present in the air in small quantities.” The Science and Engineering behind all these efforts will be discussed in detail, including possible CC mechanisms (adsorption, absorption, mineralization), engineering solutions on how to capture carbon dioxide either directly from the air or from point sources, how to sequester it, or alternatively how to redirect its carbon content into other chemical forms that are economically beneficial and eliminate carbon dioxide atmospheric emissions. Students will use software to enable simulations and technoeconomic analysis of CC systems, and to evaluate their efficiency and develop CC cost vs amount curves.
The final focal point of HIGH SUCCESS is Hydrogen and the Energy Transition. Students will receive rigorous academic background on hydrogen’s physical and chemical properties so they can develop an improved understanding of hydrogen’s benefits, safety, and the marketing colors of the naturally colorless hydrogen that are often referenced in the social media and fora that students frequent. Hydrogen’s production methods (e.g., electrolysis and steam methane reforming with CC) and uses, including storage and delivery infrastructure such as hydrogen fueling stations, will also be discussed. Demonstrations and hands-on experiments with hydrogen will culminate in student-built hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Mathematical layers (from dynamical systems to reaction–diffusion and control stability) will be emphasized so that students can connect visual simulation and experiment to analytical understanding.
Course Content
This cluster’s lectures and laboratory activities are structured so that they significantly advance the students’ knowledge levels in a number of fundamental subjects. These include mathematics (e.g. advancing in calculus and reaching differential equations), and science (e.g. creating mathematical models for physicochemical phenomena utilizing fundamental principles such as Newton’s second law, reaction kinetics, and thermodynamic equations of state). The cluster contents also include computational efforts to carry out simulations/solutions of the aforementioned models using a variety of software and programming skills (e.g. C++, Python, ASCII text manipulation, etc.), and experimental efforts to demonstrate the aforementioned physicochemical phenomena and to validate their associated models.
Starting with a brief review of hydrogen technology throughout history, the HIGH SUCCESS cluster’s instruction will first focus on an overview of several sustainability analysis concepts from the literature. These will include the concepts of the “Sustainability Interval Index (SII)” and “Sustainability Over Sets (SOS)”, followed by the concepts of “Sustainizability® (SIZ)” and “Sustainizability® Over Sets (SIZOS)” for the synthesis of sustainable systems. Students will carry out software based projects related to some of the above topics, whose results will possibly be submitted for publication in refereed journals. The projects could focus on building a virtual ecosystem (plants, consumers, decomposers), adjusting parameters (resource input, waste output) so as to enable transitions from unsustainable to sustainable regimes, and on computing an associated SSI based on various metrics (e.g., energy, emissions, profits, labor, product amounts). To support these software activities, the students’ mathematical background will be advanced to an awareness of equilibrium analysis, stability, control, machine learning, and optimization of dynamical systems and neural networks.
HIGH SUCCESS instruction will next focus on CC systems. First, CO2 capture mechanisms and systems will be discussed and then the students will learn how to use software to develop simulations of these CC systems. These will include a graphical PDE-style diffusion simulator (NetLogo, Unity, or Python based visual tools) to visualize CO₂ transport through porous media, and to implement a simple reaction–diffusion model (e.g., ∂C/∂t = D∇²C – kC) in order to connect physical intuition to numerical simulation. The results of these simulations will then be used to carry out the technoeconomic analysis of CC systems, quantifying their efficiency and creating carbon capture cost vs amount curves.
Finally, HIGH SUCCESS will focus on Hydrogen, which is being seriously considered as a major energy carrier for vehicular transportation. Its properties (electronic, physical, and chemical) will be discussed, as well as those of its isomers (protium and deuterium), and spin isomers (para and ortho). The Bohr model of the Hydrogen atom will then be discussed, and the differential equations governing the associated electron orbit will be derived using Newton’s law and analytically solved through a series of transformations, thus generalizing the model’s validity to a model describing the earth’s elliptical motion around the sun. Hydrogen combustion and electrochemical oxidation in fuel cells and their kinetics will then be discussed. Hydrogen-related experimental demonstrations will be carried out and the students will build a small hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle in their experimental project. Next, HIGH SUCCESS will focus on hydrogen production methods (Electrolysis, Steam Methane Reforming with CC, etc.) and their associated marketing colors (green, blue, etc.). Hydrogen separation/purification, storage, safety (e.g., Hindenburg), and delivery through Hydrogen Fueling Stations will be discussed, and the latter will be the focus of at least one field trip.
Students will carry out an experimental project and mathematics/science/software based projects. The experimental project will be based on physics, electrochemistry, and energy conversion concepts, and will focus on building and testing small hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles, whose performance will be demonstrated in a student competition.
Final Project
The software projects will focus on Sustainability and “Sustainizability® studies, that will be possibly carried out in a variety of software (e.g. Excel, Comsol, Unisim, Matlab, Blender, etc.), whose results will be possibly formalized in manuscripts that may be submitted for publication in refereed journals. Some projects may focus on modeling a subsystem (e.g., Atmosphere, Ocean, Energy Grid, Transport). Graph connections would encode exchanges of carbon, energy, and information, and visual output would show network flows and coupling strength. The analytical goal would be to identify global modes and instabilities using eigenvalue intuition so students can see how local sustainability choices produce global dynamical responses, and how local decisions amplify, damp, or redirect systemic behavior.
Brief descriptions of some possible projects are provided below:
Heat Islands and Urban Cooling — A 2-D temperature diffusion model to evaluate green-space impacts; finite-difference heat equation simulation and sustainability metrics. Create a 2D grid with buildings and green spaces, track temperature evolution, analyze equilibrium conditions, and explore urban cooling strategies. Concepts will include dynamical systems and feedback loops.
Artificial Pond & Pollution — Simulate agent-based fish ecosystems under pollution stress, fit logistic growth equations, and study ecosystem resilience. Concepts will include coupled systems, feedback control, and parameter fitting
Adaptive Smart Grid — Virtual city agents learn to reduce power usage, observe grid stability, and analyze feedback rates on system behavior. Concepts will include control systems and stability analysis.
Coupled Climate Network — Multiple nodes (cities, forests, oceans) exchange CO₂ and energy. Students visualize networks, compute eigenmodes, and explore global stability patterns. Concepts will include graph Laplacians and network diffusion.
CO₂ Capture Column — Simulate and analyze absorption with reaction–diffusion models and cost analysis.
Energy-Transition Network — Integrate subsystems into an interactive graph, apply graph theory to assess resilience and vulnerability, study global system behavior, and link micro-decisions to macro sustainability outcomes. Concepts will include graph theory and network analysis.
Possible Field Trips
Southern California Gas Hydrogen home in Downey,
https://www.socalgas.com/sustainability/h2home
Hydrogen Fueling Stations in Southern California (https://h2fcp.org/stationmap)