People

Principal Investigator

Dr. Xiaolei Guo

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

Dr. Xiaolei Guo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. He is a passionate corrosion scientist with over 10 years of experience in research on corrosion of metals, glass, and crystalline ceramics.

After obtaining his Ph.D. degree, he served for six years as the deputy director of the WastePD center, a multi-institution, interdisciplinary Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US. Department of Energy.

His recent research focus on three folds: 1) developing advanced materials with excellent corrosion resistance in aggressive environments, 2) understanding the fundamental corrosion mechanisms of diverse materials by leveraging in situ/ex situ electrochemical techniques, advanced characterization, and physics- and machine-learning-based models, and 3) recycling important metals via high temperature electrochemistry and computational predictions.

He is the author of over 40 research articles, including publications in high profile journals such as Nature Materials, Materials Today, and Chemical Reviews. He has been an instructor of the OSU Corrosion Short Course since 2021. He is an Associate Editor of npj Materials Degradation. His research has received funding support from multiple government agencies and industrial partners.

Postdoc

Dr. Hailong Dai

Dr. Hailong Dai Biosketch

Dr. Hailong Dai is a corrosion scientist whose research focuses on corrosion tolerance and environmental assisted cracking of structural materials in aggressive service environments. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Colorado School of Mines.

His current research program consists of two interconnected thrusts.

The first focuses on the development of corrosion-tolerant and environmentally resistant materials using additive manufacturing. By leveraging microstructural heterogeneity and compositional design, he explores strategies to enhance resistance to localized corrosion and stress corrosion cracking while maintaining mechanical integrity. This work aims to establish microstructure-informed pathways for designing next-generation structural materials with improved durability.

The second thrust centers on the corrosion and stress corrosion cracking behavior of materials used in spent nuclear fuel storage canisters under simulated service and field-exposure conditions. This work seeks to clarify the coupled effects of mechanical damage and chemical degradation during long-term exposure. Through electrochemical testing, mechanical loading, and advanced characterization, his research provides mechanistic insight to support lifetime assessment and mitigation strategies for safe extended service of nuclear waste storage systems.

Dr. Dai has authored 26 peer-reviewed publications with over 600 citations (h-index: 14), with work published in journals such as Corrosion Science, Additive Manufacturing, and Journal of Materials Science & Technology. His long-term research vision is to advance corrosion science toward predictive, mechanism-based frameworks that enable the rational design and life management of corrosion-tolerant structural materials.

PhD Students