When Dr. Nesrin Ozalp was a young girl, her father, a successful engineer with an international career, often told her: “You have an engineering mind; you are going to be an engineer.”
Following in his footsteps didn’t require much convincing because the path felt so natural to her.
When Illinois State University’s new College of Engineering welcomes its first class in fall 2025, students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering will be led by Ozalp, the unit’s founding chair and a professor who believes that engineering is a calling to contribute to the betterment of the planet and the environment. Her groundbreaking research will guide her students into what should be a challenging and exciting future.
Appears InOzalp arrived at Illinois State in fall 2023 from Purdue University Northwest. She calls her job a once-in-a-career opportunity. With advanced degrees from Stanford University and the University of Washington, Ozalp is eager to share her expertise and her passion for the profession. It’s a passion first inspired by her upbringing and now deeply rooted in her research.
“My research is on clean energy, particularly using solar energy to produce hydrogen,” Ozalp said. “I am passionate about the hydrogen economy and the use of hydrogen as an alternative energy source for fossil fuels. I believe that hydrogen can be a great source for industry, for the residential sector, for the commercial sector, and for space exploration.”
Ozalp puts her knowledge of clean energy to use by designing engines that don’t release harmful emissions into the environment. Her research focuses on hydrogen production, which she describes as the cleanest fuel with about three times the energy content of fossil fuels.
Ozalp has been the lead investigator of research on projects totaling more than $5 million. A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a Fellow of the American Society of Thermal Fluid Engineers (ASTFE), she has served as past chair of ASME’s Solar Energy Division Executive Committee and currently serving as a member of the ASTFE Executive Committee.
Last fall, she filed a new patent for a gas turbine that can produce and use hydrogen for power generation. She expects to involve her students in this and other research projects, as she has done throughout her career. Her students will gain experience with computer-aided design software to draw engine parts and the engine itself and will conduct experiments on these innovative energy systems.
—Dr. Nesrin Ozalp
“All my students so far have had tremendous experiences in experimentation and have excelled in their careers leveraging the knowledge and skills they developed in my labs.”
Students will work on projects that involve robotics, artificial intelligence applications for environmental sustainability, automation in agriculture, aerospace machinery, space shuttle development, and innovative tools for medicine and advanced surgeries. She hopes to train them to produce hydrogen for hydrogen-powered cars, to make agriculture fertilizers like ammonia, and for a variety of commodity uses.
“My work is mainly experimental with appreciable portions including numerical or computational work,” she said. “All my students so far have had tremendous experiences in experimentation and have excelled in their careers leveraging the knowledge and skills they developed in my labs.”
Ozalp said it’s imperative to develop hydrogen as an energy source because there are a finite supply of fossil fuels and the adverse environmental consequences associated with their consumption for the planet.
“So, the question is: ‘What other fuel, besides fossil fuels, does Mother Nature provide us with?’” she said. “It became apparent that Mother Nature had made hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, but unlike fossil fuels, which are extracted from reservoirs or mines, hydrogen cannot be obtained directly by drilling into the Earth. Instead, it is primarily extracted from water through processes like electrolysis or from natural gas through steam methane reforming.
“While these methods are effective, they require sophisticated technologies and energy inputs. Despite these challenges, given hydrogen’s abundance and potential as a clean energy source, humanity’s technological advancements suggest that we are now poised to further refine extraction and utilization methods for hydrogen.”
Figuring out how to produce and use hydrogen is complicated, Ozalp said, because the world is accustomed to being “spoon-fed” fossil fuels.
“We need oil, so we extract it from underground reservoirs or offshore drilling sites,” she said. “We just run it through refineries and use it. Same thing if we need natural gas. We extract it from natural gas reservoirs. Same thing with coal when we need it. But hydrogen is not like that. There is no such thing as a hydrogen reservoir.”
Hydrogen must be extracted from other substances, like water and natural gas.
“With the current state of technology, the extraction of hydrogen from such substances is an expensive and complicated process,” Ozalp said. “Hydrogen fuel can’t compete with one gallon of oil or a pound of coal. The technology at this time is highly commercialized and is designed to keep fossil fuels cheap. We need to advance hydrogen production technology to make it cheaper than gasoline or diesel. To envision a future where solar hydrogen competes with gasoline and diesel at gas stations, we must harness the power of solar energy in hydrogen production.”
Efforts are underway globally to discover more cost-effective means of hydrogen production. Researchers from China and Europe, and within fossil fuel and automotive sectors are pursuing approaches akin to Ozalp’s. While encountering similar obstacles, many of these initiatives benefit from greater financial support.
“We are continuing to work on hydrogen production technology,” she said. “Our patent-pending technology is a groundbreaking fusion of traditional gas turbine technology, commonly found in aviation, with innovative solar energy utilization and natural gas conversion. This pioneering approach enables the production of hydrogen within a solar gas turbine operating in a supersonic environment, simultaneously generating power.
“Currently, we are engaged in discussions with potential investors who recognize the potential of this technology, and we have secured a highly experienced CEO to steer this endeavor.”
Dr. Nesrin Ozalp’s design of the mechanical iris, shown above, mimics the human eye. When the light intensity increases, the mechanical iris closes to maintain a semi-constant temperature inside the reactor by controlling the light entry.
Ozalp described the history and progression of power development by humans this way: In the beginning, humans used muscle power, then horsepower, then wood, then coal, followed by oil and natural gas. As humanity evolved, so did its understanding and utilization of natural resources to propel civilization forward.
“What’s next? If we refer to a typical thermodynamics textbook used by mechanical engineering students,” she said, “it shows that when we burn one kilogram of coal, we obtain approximately 32,800 kilojoules of energy. Similarly, burning one kilogram of gasoline yields about 47,300 kilojoules of energy, and for diesel, it’s around 46,100 kilojoules of energy. Burning natural gas provides approximately 50,000 kilojoules.
“But when we burn one kilogram of hydrogen, we get about three times more energy. So, human technological advancements in the use of energy sources first saw very small increments with not much improvement. Then there is this big jump up in energy, offering tremendous potential with hydrogen, which would open many opportunities in advancing civilization, including space travel.”
Ozalp utilizes a solar reactor crafted specifically for converting sunlight into fuel. The engine she created incorporates a window for light entry and receives the feedstock, which comprises natural gas containing hydrogen.
The design of Ozalp’s solar-powered engine was inspired by nature, particularly the human eye.
“Much like the human iris adjusts in response to light levels, my engine adapts to varying weather conditions,” she said. “If it’s cloudy or light is insufficient, it regulates light entry to optimize performance.”
Ozalp believes engineering is an art form and that creative engineering is essential to daily life. She is excited to be at Illinois State and on the cusp of training the University’s first cohort of engineering students.
“It’s incredibly impactful to establish a new department that will inspire thousands of students with the noble mindset of environmental stewardship,” she said. “They’ll be prompted to consider how they can make a direct positive impact on the world and explore entrepreneurship avenues to implement their innovative ideas into sustainable businesses.
“I would like them to be inspired to not just learn but also to create. Our students will be successful engineers who will have the opportunity to file their own patents.”
