| Scope |
Thermodynamics controls synthesis, corrosion, degradation, environmental transport, and catalysis processes and forms the fundamental underpinnings of reactivity, transformation, and stability in materials. The developments in energy production and storage (including renewables, nuclear energy, and batteries, to name a few active areas) have resulted in increasing need for improved and new materials, including better ways to characterize and study their fundamental properties. The investigation of the thermodynamics of many materials which undergo secondary phase formation under operating conditions raise issues of lifetime and compatibility critical for their application. Extreme conditions such as elevated temperatures and pressures, high radiation fields, and corrosive environments are encountered in nuclear energy and aeronautical and space applications. Such conditions parallel those encountered in the deep Earth and in planetary interiors. Fundamental thermodynamic measurements and computational predictions are required to understand and model the synthesis and use and eventual disposition of energy materials. The proposed symposium will bring together a group of experimental and computational materials scientists focused on predicting and measuring thermodynamic properties of traditional and new materials to be used in extreme environments.
Abstracts are solicited in (but not limited to) the following topics:
• Experimental and computational thermodynamics of protective barriers (e.g. thermal barrier coatings, fuel cladding, waste containment).
• Measurements and computational predictions of the thermodynamics and reactivity of materials under extreme conditions (i.e. high radiation dose, elevated temperature and/or pressure, hydrothermal, corrosive environments)
• Materials under extreme geologic and planetary conditions, emphasizing the large variety of pressure–temperature environments and compositions found in our solar system and in exoplanets
• Thermodynamic stability of materials for nuclear reactors (LWR, PWR, MSR, etc.) and waste immobilization
• Thermodynamics and long term stability of materials for batteries, fuel cells, photovoltaics, and other energy applications
• New non-oxide systems (alloys, carbides, nitrides, sulfides, selenides) |