About

Jonah Erlebacher is a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He joined the faculty of the Whiting School in 2000 and has been recognized for his advances in materials for energy technologies, computational materials science, and innovative methods for manufacturing nanostructured metals. His research focuses on developing methods for deep decarbonization of energy technology by transforming small molecules like methane and carbon dioxide into solid carbon, and upgrading low-value carbon into high-value products such as fiber, structural carbon, and biochar for permanent and safe sequestration. Additionally, he explores novel chemical pathways to produce hydrogen efficiently and at scale, utilizing experiments, process modeling, computational fluid dynamics, and prototype reactor systems. Erlebacher also works on creating and studying metal coatings that are highly resistant to corrosion and mechanical fatigue, employing experimental synthesis and multi-scale modeling. He holds multiple patents related to nanoporous gold leaf, advanced fuel cell catalysts, and methane decomposition processes. His contributions include developing computer models to simulate the morphological evolution of nanostructured materials over time. Erlebacher has received numerous awards, including the Johns Hopkins University Inaugural Gordon Croft Investment Faculty Scholar, the William H. Huggins Excellence in Teaching Award, and the NSF CAREER Award. He is a member of several professional societies and has served on various committees and conference leadership roles, contributing significantly to the field of materials science.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Chemical engineering
• Chemistry
• Metallurgy

Selected publications

• Carbon dioxide derived carbon-ceramic composites by chemical vapor infiltration

  Chemical Engineering Journal · 2025-04-28 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Interfacial Phase Evolution during In Situ TEM Dealloying Approach of Ti30Cr/Ni

  Microscopy and Microanalysis · 2024-07-01 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Carbon Dioxide Derived Carbon-Ceramic Composites by Chemical Vapor Infiltration

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• A coupled crystal inelasticity-phase field model for crack growth in polycrystalline nitinol microstructures

  Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering · 2024-08-15 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract This paper introduces a comprehensive computational framework, comprising a finite deformation crystal inelasticity constitutive model and phase field model, for modeling crack growth in superelastic nitinol polycrystalline microstructures. The crystal inelasticity model represents crystal stretching and lattice rotation from elastic mechanisms, as well as local inelastic deformation due to austenite-martensite phase transformation. The phase field formulation decomposes the Helmholtz free energy density into stored elastic energy, phase transformation energy, and crack surface energy components. The elastic energy accounts for tension-compression asymmetry with the formation of the crack through a spectral decomposition. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations generate equilibrium area fractions of different surface orientations, which serve as weights for the surface energy. An adaptive wavelet-enhanced hierarchical finite element (FE) model is introduced to alleviate high computational overhead in phase field crack simulations. Simulations with the coupled inelasticity phase field model are conducted under various loading conditions including Mode-I tension, a quasi-static Kalthoff experiment, and cyclic loading of polycrystalline microstructures. Crack propagation is effectively predicted by this model, providing valuable insights into the material mechanical behavior with growing cracks.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Method of carbon dioxide-free hydrogen production from hydrocarbon decomposition over metal salts

  OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2023-01-23 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A process to decompose methane into carbon (graphitic powder) and hydrogen (H.sub.2 gas) without secondary production of carbon dioxide, employing a cycle in which a secondary chemical is recycled and reused, is disclosed.

  Publisher

• Carbon Dioxide-Free Hydrogen and Solid Carbon from Natural Gas via Metal Salt Intermediates

  2023-12-31

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Production of hydrogen with low emissions and low energy input is critical for the clean energy transition, enabling all sectors of the economy to decarbonize – from electricity generation to residential heating to industrial power. In this program, Johns Hopkins University in partnership with ETCH, INC translated a novel laboratory-scale chemistry to decompose methane to hydrogen and solid carbon into a pre-commercial system. Central to the process is a closed-loop thermocatalytic redox cycle without water consumption or carbon dioxide generation that can be implemented with low capital and operating costs. Techno-economic and lifecycle analysis suggests this approach will produce the lowest cost and lowest-emissions route to hydrogen production.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• (Invited) Dealloyed Materials for Corrosion Protection

  ECS Meeting Abstracts · 2023-12-22

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Dealloying has become a wildly popular method to produce complex porous materials with controlled nanostructure. Many types of dealloying are now used, from traditional electrochemical dealloying in which an electrolyte is used for selective etching, to more recent innovations such as liquid metal dealloying where a molten metal is used as a "solvent" and dealloying is driven by enthalpic affinity for one component to dissolve into the molten bath. Historically, dealloying was first intensively studied in the context of corrosion. Dealloying was something to be avoided, not celebrated. Here we turn the question on its head - can we make dealloyed materials that are corrosion-resistant? Toward this end, we report our examinations of studying the corrosion response of two-phase NiTi/Cr films made on engineering alloys by a kind of liquid metal dealloying. These materials exhibit interesting responses associated with their complex two-phase nanostructure formed during the dealloying reaction.

  PublisherDOI

• Methods of producing porous platinum-based catalysts for oxygen reduction

  OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2023-01-23

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  A porous metal that comprises platinum and has a specific surface area that is greater than 5 m²/g and less than 75 m²/g. A fuel cell includes a first electrode, a second electrode spaced apart from the first electrode, and an electrolyte arranged between the first and the second electrodes. At least one of the first and second electrodes is coated with a porous metal catalyst for oxygen reduction, and the porous metal catalyst comprises platinum and has a specific surface area that is greater than 5 m²/g and less than 75 m²/g. A method of producing a porous metal according to an embodiment of the current invention includes producing an alloy consisting essentially of platinum and nickel according to the formula Pt_xNi_1-x, where x is at least 0.01 and less than 0.3; and dealloying the alloy in a substantially pH neutral solution to reduce an amount of nickel in the alloy to produce the porous metal.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Topological control of liquid-metal-dealloyed structures

  Nature Communications · 2022-05-25 · 40 citations

  articleOpen access

  The past few years have witnessed the rapid development of liquid metal dealloying to fabricate nano-/meso-scale porous and composite structures with ultra-high interfacial area for diverse materials applications. However, this method currently has two important limitations. First, it produces bicontinuous structures with high-genus topologies for a limited range of alloy compositions. Second, structures have a large ligament size due to substantial coarsening during dealloying at high temperature. Here we demonstrate computationally and experimentally that those limitations can be overcome by adding to the metallic melt an element that promotes high-genus topologies by limiting the leakage of the immiscible element during dealloying. We further interpret this finding by showing that bulk diffusive transport of the immiscible element in the liquid melt strongly influences the evolution of the solid fraction and topology of the structure during dealloying. The results shed light on fundamental differences in liquid metal and electrochemical dealloying and establish a new approach to produce liquid-metal-dealloyed structures with desired size and topologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A powder metallurgy approach to liquid metal dealloying with applications in additive manufacturing

  Acta Materialia · 2022-07-28 · 13 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Defect and Surfactant Mediated Growth of High Quality Single Crystal Metallic Thin Films

  NSF · $375k · 2013–2017

• Probing the Kinetics of the Metal/Electrolyte Interface Using Nanoporous Gold

  NSF · $300k · 2007–2010

• Limits of Tunability in Dealloyed Nanoporous Metals

  NSF · $556k · 2010–2014

• Powder-Based Dealloying

  NSF · $491k · 2018–2021

• Materials World Network : Heterogeneous Nucleation on Nanoporous Substrates

  NSF · $318k · 2008–2012

Frequent coauthors

• K. Sieradzki

  Arizona State University

  70 shared

• Mingwei Chen

  Johns Hopkins University

  69 shared

• Ian McCue

  Northwestern University

  61 shared

• Alain Karma

  46 shared

• Jörg Weißmüller

  Universität Hamburg

  38 shared

• Yi Ding

  Ruijin Hospital

  36 shared

• Erkin Şeker

  University of California, Davis

  36 shared

• Sean Hearne

  36 shared

Labs

• Jonah Erlebacher LabPI

Awards & honors

• Johns Hopkins University Inaugural Gordon Croft Investment F…
• JHU William H. Huggins Excellence in Teaching Award
• 2001 National Science Foundation CAREER Faculty Young Invest…