Muhammad Irfan Maulana Kusdhany

I am an R&D Engineer at Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, working in the Hydrogen Tech Concept Team, where my current work focuses on longitudinal vehicle simulation and hydrogen-powered vehicle systems. I completed my PhD at Kyushu University under the supervision of Prof. Masamichi Nishihara, with co-advising from Dr. Stephen Lyth (University of Strathclyde). My doctoral research focused on porous carbon materials for gas storage in clean energy applications, including the use of materials informatics to accelerate their development.

PhD Research

There are two ways we can reduce emissions from the energy sector: by replacing fossil fuels with clean fuels like hydrogen, and by capturing the emissions from fossil fuel combustion. For these applications, gas storage is an important issue. Hydrogen used as fuel needs to be stored in a compact manner, and carbon dioxide capture requires the separation and purification of carbon dioxide from mixtures with low CO₂ concentration (<15%) .

Current gas storage solutions suffer from certain issues which hinders the deployment of clean energy technologies. For example, hydrogen storage requires high pressures of up to 70 MPa, while conventional carbon dioxide capture plants still use liquid amines which incur large energy costs.

I synthesize and optimize porous carbon materials which are cheap, scalable, and are capable of storing large amounts of gases while avoiding the pitfalls of other storage solutions. They can store gases at a lower pressure and can desorb gases without needing a lot of energy. Recently, I have also used machine learning and applied statistical techniques to understand and control the properties of these materials.

Publications

• Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Vorokhta, M.; Sasaki, K.; Nishihara, M.; Lyth, S. M. Solvent-Driven Pore Engineering in Coffee-Derived Activated Hydrochar: Implications for Post-Combustion CO2 Capture. Carbon Energy 2026, 8, e70141. https://doi.org/10.1002/cey2.70141.
• Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Amarasinghe, S. I.; Maus, S.; Sasaki, K.; Nishihara, M.; Lyth, S. M. An Open-Source Python Package for Lumped Parameter Modeling of Sorbent-Filled Storage Tanks for Hydrogen, CO2, Methane, and Other Fluids. Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 2025, 150, 149793. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.05.423.
• Nisar, L.; Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Nishihara, M.; Hussain, F.; Burnett, A. D.; Lyth, S. M.; Pourkashanian, M.; Ismail, M. S.; Chauvet, A. A. P. Probing Charge Trapping Sites in M–N–C Electrocatalysts via Time-Resolved Transient Absorption Spectroscopy. J. Mater. Chem. A 2025, 13, 28377–28391. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5TA02913A.
• Vorokhta, M.; Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Vorochta, M.; Švábová, M.; Nishihara, M.; Sasaki, K.; Lyth, S. M. Acetone Adsorption on Hierarchically Porous Carbon Foams: Effect of Nitrogen Doping and Oxygen Functional Groups. Chem. Eng. J. 2025, 521, 166784. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.166784.
• Vorokhta, M.; Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Švábová, M.; Nishihara, M.; Sasaki, K.; Lyth, S. M. Microporous carbon foams: The effect of nitrogen-doping on CO2 capture and separation via pressure swing adsorption. Separation and Purification Technology. 2025, 354, 5, 129054. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2024.129054
• Vorokhta, M.; Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Vöröš, D.; Nishihara, M.; Sasaki, K.; Lyth, S. M. Microporous carbon foams: The effect of nitrogen-doping on CO2 capture and separation via pressure swing adsorption. Chemical Engineering Journal. 2023, 471, 144524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2023.144524
• Dimov, N.; Staykov, A.; Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Lyth, S. M. Tailoring the work function of graphene via defects, nitrogen-doping and hydrogenation: A first principles study. Nanotechnology. 2023, 34, 415001. 10.1088/1361-6528/ac7ecf
• Kusdhany, M.I.M., Ma, Z., Mufundirwa, A., Li, H-W., Sasaki, K., Hayashi, A., & Lyth, S.M. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide uptake on scalable and inexpensive microporous carbon foams. Microporous and Mesoporous Materials. 2022, 112141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micromeso.2022.112141
• Kusdhany, M. I. M.; Lyth, S. M. New Insights into Hydrogen Uptake on Porous Carbon Materials via Explainable Machine Learning. Carbon N. Y. 2021, 179, 190–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2021.04.036.

Presentations

• Engineering Porous Materials at Multiple Scales (EPoMM). 2024. University of Bath, UK.
• World Hydrogen Energy Conference 2022. Istanbul, Turkey.
• Materials Research Meeting 2021: Materials Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals. Yokohama, Japan.
• 1st UK-Japan Symposium on Advanced Materials for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. 2021. (Won Poster Award 1st Place) Online.
• 2nd European Sorption Science Symposium. 2021. Online.
• Pacific Rim Meeting for Electrochemical and Solid State Science. 2020. Online.
• Kyushu University Energy Week. 2020. Kyushu University, Japan.

• 2nd Engineering Porous Materials at Multiple Scales (EPoMM). 2025. University of Bath, UK.
• The 18th International Symposium on Metal-Hydrogen Systems. 2024. St Malo, France.
• The 2nd UK-Japan Symposium on Advanced Materials for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. 2024. (Won Presentation Award) University of Hull, UK.
• 4th Sheffield-Kyushu Workshop on Electrochemical Energy Conversion. 2019. Kyushu University, Japan.

Education

Skills

• Raman Spectroscopy
• Scanning Electron Microscopy
• X-Ray Diffractography
• Adsorption Experiments Using Volumetric Devices

• Machine Learning
• Bayesian Optimization
• Business Data Visualization with PowerBI
• Process/Vehicle Simulation in Matlab/Simulink and Python

Awards & Certifications

• Oral Presentation Prize Winner. 2nd UK-Japan Symposium on Advanced Materials for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells.
• Kyushu University's Q-Energy Decarbonization Research Fellowship Recipient. (2022-2025).
• 1st Place Poster Prize Winner. 1st UK-Japan Symposium on Advanced Materials for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells.
• Monbukagakusho (MEXT) Japanese Government Scholarship Recipient (2016-2021)
• Kyushu University Award for Academic Excellence (2020). Awarded for graduating with the best GPA in my cohort.