Advanced Materials for Energy Conversion and Storage 2022: Functional Materials for Energy
Sponsored by: TMS Functional Materials Division, TMS: Energy Conversion and Storage Committee
Program Organizers: Jung Choi, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Soumendra Basu, Boston University; Paul Ohodnicki, University Of Pittsburgh; Partha Mukherjee, Purdue University; Surojit Gupta, University of North Dakota; Amit Pandey, Lockheed Martin Space; Kyle Brinkman, Clemson University

Tuesday 2:30 PM
March 1, 2022
Room: 212B
Location: Anaheim Convention Center

Session Chair: Paul Ohodnicki, University of Pittsburgh; Swetha Chandrasekaran, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory


2:30 PM  
Enhancing the Thermoelectric Performance of Si Using Energy Filtering : Aria Hosseini1; Lorenzo Mangolini1; Peter Greaney1; 1University of California, Riverside
    Researchers have recently developed processes for synthesizing monolithic Si with improved ZT. These materials obtain enhanced ZT through a finely controlled array of secondary phase inclusions. In this work we present a semiclassical electron transport model that demonstrates that the ZT enhancement originates from enhancement of the thermopower due to the mechanism of electron energy filtering. The model is free of tuning parameters and takes as its only input the experimentally measured carrier concentration. Fermi’s golden rule is used to compute electron scattering interactions with nanoparticles. The model suggests that if the energy filtering mechanism can be tuned, significant further enhancements in ZT are available in the tails of the Fermi-dirac distribution of highly doped thermoelectrics. This hints at a new strategy for optimization of thermoelectrics that breaks materials engineers free from the traditional paradigm of engineering the fermi energy at the band edge.

2:50 PM  
Adsorption and Surface Diffusion of Metals for Advanced Manufacturing Applications: Austin Biaggne1; Lan Li1; 1Boise State University
    Advanced manufacturing has been shown to be a viable method for the development of sensors for in-pile nuclear reactors. The advanced manufacturing process involves the printing of metal, such as Mo and Nb, on substrates. Mo and Nb metals are strong candidates for the construction of in-pile thermocouples due to their temperature and irradiation resistance. However, surface diffusion and bonding between the metals and substrates have not been fully addressed. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to study the adsorption, bonding, and surface diffusion of Mo and Nb adatoms on substrates. Nudged elastic band methods were used to calculate surface diffusion paths. Electronic structure calculations were used to explore the bonding characteristics between the metals and the substrate.

3:10 PM  Cancelled
Bioinspired Low-cost Photoelectrochemical Green Hydrogen Production Cell: Laura Carmona Saldarriaga1; Edgar Ossa Henao1; 1Universidad Eafit
    Population growth has involved an increase in the use of natural resources such as fossil fuels. This has promoted the development of strategies looking for the mitigation of their impacts, as hydrogen production from water, using solar energy. Despite the widespread use of silicon solar cells, its intrinsic energy production does not reach the required levels to split hydrogen in a photoelectrochemical process. Hence, different strategies as nanoarchitecture have to come to play to increase energy levels. Here, mitochondria were used as a source of inspiration to develop gold-nanostructures on a Silicon substrate to produce Hydrogen from salty water. The cell was designed with a Silicon substrate to absorb solar photons, while specially designed gold nanostructures on top act as the required catalyst to enhance the energy inside the cell, splitting water to produce green Hydrogen that can be further used to fuel Hydrogen cells.

3:30 PM  
Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesis of Atomically Dispersed Single Metal Site Carbon Fibers for Highly Efficient Electrocatalysis: Qiurong Shi1; Sivasankara Rao Ede2; David Kisailus1; 1University of California, Irving; 2University of California, Irvine
    The severe global energy and environmental crises have inspired numerous research efforts in developing highly efficient energy conversion devices like fuel cells. Currently, the nitrogen-coordinated single site M-N-C catalysts have demonstrated promising oxygen reduction reaction catalytic activity, which has been regarded as potential substitutes for Pt catalysts. However, the inferior performance in full cells hindered their practical applications. Here, we introduce a combination of electrospinning and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for synthesizing hierarchically porous M-N-C (M = Fe, Co, Mn, etc.) electrocatalysts. The overall solid-synthesis significantly simplifies the processing methods while obtaining local atomic order within macro-structures using the in situ growth of zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs). As expected, the as-obtained M-N-GCFs demonstrated remarkably enhanced catalytic activity in both the half-cell and fuel cells, which would open a brand-new avenue for accelerating their future applications in energy storage and conversion devices.

3:50 PM Break

4:10 PM  
Bismuth Ferrite: Comparing the Effect of Synthesis Route on Properties: Lyndon Smith1; Rifat Mahbub2; Jeffrey Shield2; Vijaya Rangari1; Shaik Jeelani1; 1Tuskegee University; 2University of Nebraska-Lincoln
    Bismuth ferrite is a well-known multiferroic. It shows ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic ordering with a Curie temperature of ~1100 K and a Néel temperature of ~653 K. Bismuth ferrite’s properties can be altered through synthesis and doping. In this study, bismuth ferrite precursors were synthesized using three methods for comparison – a conventional shaker mill, a nano-agitator mill, and precipitation from solution. Each method was followed by calcination. Gadolinium and cobalt were used as dopants in the precipitation method. The composition, morphology, and magnetic properties of the resulting particles were characterized with SEM/EDAX, XRD, and VSM. The particles produced from the nano-agitator mill process had a more uniform distribution of grain sizes than the conventional shaker mill process. The particles produced through calcination method were large polygons covered in smaller facets. This method is faster, but there are few options available for modification with dopants when compared to the milling methods.

4:30 PM  
Film Strains Enhance the Reversible Cycling of Intercalation Electrodes: Delin Zhang1; A. Renuka Balakrishna1; 1University of Southern California
    A key cause of chemo-mechanical degradation in battery electrodes is that they undergo abrupt phase transformation during the charging/discharging cycle. This phase transformation is accompanied by lattice misfit strains that nucleate microcracks, induce fracture, and in extreme cases, amorphizes the electrode. In today's talk, I will show that by engineering suitable film strains in the electrode, we can regulate phase transformation voltages and thus circumvent the chemo-mechanical degradation. We have tested our strategy using a combination of theory and experiment, and we find (for LixV2O5) that tensile film strains lower the voltage for phase transformations to facilitate their reversible cycling across a wider voltage window without chemo-mechanical degradation. These results suggest that film strain engineering is an alternative approach to preventing chemo-mechanical degradation in intercalation electrodes. Beyond thin-film electrodes, our findings are applicable to the study of stress-induced phase transformations in particle-based electrodes and the thin-surface-layers forming on cathode particles.

4:50 PM  
Synthesis of Bicontinuous 3-D Turbostratic Graphene: Peter Santiago1; Sierra Gross1; Derek Chang1; Ali Mohraz1; Regina Ragan1; 1University of California, Irvine
    Understanding how to design and fabricate surfaces with molecular scale control is a promising approach for the next generation of robust catalysts; these systems maximize catalytic performance while simultaneously minimizing the use of expensive and scarce platinum-group metals (PGM). In addition to molecular structure, of crucial consequence to chemical activity, high surface area, mass transport and conductivity is also critical to optimize performance of support structures. Results of synthesis of turbostratic graphene in 3D architectures (T-3DG) will be presented. Gas phase processing is shown to achieve T-3DG that is important for mechanical stability and electrical conductivity approaching single layer graphene. The self-assembled T-3DG possess bi-continuous pathways that are attractive for gas phase transport. Results of morphological and electrochemical characterization will be presented.