NSF EPSCoR grants fuel research in clean hydrogen, printed electronics at OSU
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Media Contact: Tanner Holubar | Communications Specialist | 405-744-2065 | tanner.holubar@okstate.edu
From tiny surfaces where catalysts enable clean hydrogen to cutting-edge electronics that could one day be printed directly onto aircraft, scientists are approaching major questions at different scales.
In the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology, two professors from different engineering backgrounds are exploring ways to find answers to those questions.
Dr. Praveen Meduri, assistant professor in the School of Chemical Engineering, and Dr. Sri Ramesh, associate professor in the School of Industrial Engineering and Management, have earned National Science Foundation EPSCoR Research Fellows to Stimulate Competitive Research grants.
Their work represents the broader EPSCoR mission to strengthen research capabilities, collaboration and create opportunities for researchers and students.
Printing the future of electronics
Ramesh has received $299,000 for research titled “Low-Temperature Plasma-Assisted Aerosol Printing of High-k Inorganic Dielectrics for Flexible Electronics.”
Dielectrics are key components in electronics, serving as insulating layers in capacitors and transistors that store charge and control current flow. For decades, silicon dioxide was the standard dielectric. But when transistors became so small that the silicon dioxide layer started to leak, industry moved to high-k dielectrics, which are inorganic.
High-k dielectrics can store more charge and have thicker layers that leak less. These oxides are not currently used in flexible and printed electronics because their formation requires high temperatures or vacuum conditions that plastic and paper can’t withstand. Printed electronics instead use polymer materials with lower performance.
“In this project, we are studying whether a plasma at atmospheric pressure can convert a precursor solution into a functional oxide during a single-step, low-temperature printing process, obviating the need for high-temperature, multi-stage processing,” Ramesh said.
Ramesh said that if successful, it would be possible to print capacitors, transistors and sensors in full without a cleanroom or vacuum infrastructure. It would also benefit applications such as sensors on aircraft, wearable health monitors and low-cost diagnostics. These benefits are of great interest to Oklahoma’s aerospace and defense sectors.
“The relationships between the structure of an oxide film and its dielectric properties have been established for films grown thermally or under vacuum conditions,” Ramesh said. “Whether those relationships hold for a film formed within milliseconds by plasma chemistry at low temperature has not been examined, and either result would be informative.”
Ramesh is using plasma, a partially ionized gas that contains electrons, ions and reactive elements. The gas itself stays at room temperature, while the electrons carry enough energy to break chemical bonds, allowing reactions that normally require high temperatures.
The plasma effectively turns the printhead into a chemical processing system. In conventional inkjet printing, the ink gets deposited and then converted into a usable material during a separate step, often by heating. In plasma-assisted printing, that conversion happens as the ink travels through the plasma, allowing the material to be deposited and converted in a single step.
Ramesh said the study of printed electronics is relatively new at Oklahoma State University, but additive manufacturing and related materials research have been growing on campus.
The chance to establish the fundamentals of a manufacturing route in the early stages influences the direction that route will take.
“I would like that contribution to come from OSU and IEM,” Ramesh said. “Oklahoma's aerospace and defense sector requires electronics that can be fabricated directly on structures and operated in harsh environments, and developing this expertise at OSU makes it accessible to Oklahoma students and companies.”
Ramesh said that while IEM is generally seen as the study of manufacturing systems, a manufacturing system is a collection of unit processes, and what a system can produce is limited by what processes can do.
His research focuses on understanding the process itself — how it forms a material — and controlling it, with the long-term goal of making it reliable enough to integrate into a production line.
This research complements the strength that IEM has built in advanced manufacturing. It will also create opportunities for students. Graduate students can work on these problems for their master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. Undergraduate students can take part in the IEM Undergraduate Research Assistant program, and Ramesh’s lab hires CEAT students through scholarships.
Overall, this research represents a burgeoning area of research for OSU.
“This award is a testament to the growing advanced manufacturing research at OSU and to the impactful problems we are tackling,” Ramesh said. “The award is also timely, as we are an active NSF REU Site for additive manufacturing research. All these opportunities will ensure that our students work on these problems, develop their skill sets through experiential learning, and fill the talent pipeline that Oklahoma's defense and advanced manufacturing sector demands.”
Powering cleaner hydrogen
Meduri has received $297,896 for a project titled “Watching Catalysts in Action to Design Low-Cost Materials for Clean Hydrogen Production from Water.”
While hydrogen is one of the cleanest-burning fuels, many of the materials used to produce it make the process expensive.
Two of the most effective catalysts for producing hydrogen from water are made with scarce precious metals, which can make large-scale production more difficult. Meduri’s project examines copper- and zinc-based selenides as potential alternatives to precious metal catalysts.
“Currently, the best oxygen evolution reaction catalysts include precious-metal oxides like iridium and ruthenium oxides,” Meduri said. “Although effective, their high cost due to metal scarcity poses challenges for sustainable hydrogen production.”
The project will focus on water electrolysis, a process using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen evolution reaction is slower and more complex, making it a key target for improving hydrogen production efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Meduri isn’t just looking for a material that works, but wants to shed light on what happens to a catalyst while it is working. Catalyst surfaces can change composition and structure during electrochemical reactions.
The team will use advanced operando techniques such as Raman spectroscopy and scanning electrochemical microscopy to study real-time changes. In collaboration with Dr. Daniel Esposito at Columbia University, Meduri and a graduate student will gain experience in new techniques, bringing those methods back to OSU.
“This will help us understand catalyst performance under operating conditions and why certain structures exhibit high stability and efficiency,” Meduri said.
This level of understanding could change how researchers approach developing catalysts. Rather than testing many materials in search of the right one, Meduri hopes to establish design principles that enable researchers to design catalysts for specific purposes strategically.
“We believe that by monitoring surface changes in affordable catalysts, we can pinpoint the chemical species that boost their effectiveness,” Meduri said. “This understanding will guide us in creating catalysts that are cost-effective, highly active and durable, facilitating broader adoption of this technology.”
The potential applications extend beyond hydrogen, including technologies for recovering critical minerals from produced water, producing ammonia from nitrate-contaminated water, and creating biofuels from biomass.
“I am very proud, happy, and grateful to receive the NSF EPSCoR Research Fellows Award,” Meduri said. “It provides a valuable opportunity to deepen our fundamental understanding and develop capabilities that will benefit OSU and Oklahoma for many years.”
Meduri hopes this project establishes a foothold for OSU in electrochemical energy conversion with operando capabilities. Students will be part of that goal as well, with a graduate student receiving dual mentorship at OSU and Columbia, while undergraduates will gain hands-on research experience. The team also aims to incorporate operando techniques into the “Electrocatalysis: Basics and Applications” course, benefiting students in chemical engineering, chemistry and physics.
“This award is not the final step in a research idea, but a starting point for developing advanced research infrastructure at OSU and statewide,” Meduri said. “Although the immediate focus of this project is on green hydrogen production, the overarching aim is to foster knowledge, collaboration and research facilities that support a broader range of energy, water and food technologies relevant to Oklahoma.”