Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Materials Science & Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, 2017
  • B.S., Materials Science & Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), 2010
Professional Affiliations
  • American Chemical Society
  • Materials Research Society
  • The Electrochemical Society

Dr. Hardin specializes in understanding the complex chemical dynamics that underpin practical consumer and industrial products, including nanomaterials and their applications. His expertise is in the design and evaluation of catalysts for energy production and chemical conversion reactions used in fuel-cells, electrolyzers, exhaust treatment systems, chemical manufacturing, and air batteries - among others. 

Dr. Hardin has extensive experience in catalysis, surface science, colloidal science, mesoporous materials, nanomaterials synthesis, and chemical analysis. He has applied this knowledge to assist clients across many markets in matters of product performance, safety, durability, and recalls as well as litigation and arbitration support.

He is a trained materials scientist and electrochemist who utilizes engineering principles to integrate his fundamental knowledge of chemistry and materials physics to address challenges in the energy, automotive, medical, and environmental industries. This approach has enabled his work to advance the understanding of the mechanistic underpinnings of oxygen electrochemistry, nanoparticle drug delivery, and urea remediation. He regularly utilizes many characterization methods to probe surface, bulk, structural, and chemical properties of materials including electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), chemical titrations, X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen sorption (BET), vibrational spectroscopy (FTIR/NIR/UV-VIS/Raman), thermogravimetric analysis with differential scanning calorimetry (TGA-DSC), dynamic light scattering (DLS), and zeta-potential measurements.

Dr. Hardin has conducted extensive studies on the influence of material composition and chemical environment on performance, reliability and safety of catalytic systems. This began with design of dynamic chemical systems involving metal ions in aqueous and chelating environments in his doctoral research at the University of Texas, where he was co-advised by an analytical chemist and a chemical engineer. With one foot planted firmly in chemistry and the other in engineering, he engineered metal and metal oxide nanoparticles for energy generation in metal-air batteries and regenerative fuel cells, and developed inexpensive replacements for the iridium-based electrodes used in the chlor-alkali process. In the course of developing these materials, he elucidated novel reaction mechanisms involved in oxygen electrochemistry and helped pioneer a deeper understanding of the design and selection criteria for catalytic processes. Dr. Hardin's research has been published in Nature Materials, Nature Communications, and journals of the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.