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2021 Technical Division Student Poster Contest: FMD 20201 Technical Division Undergraduate Student Poster Contest
Program Organizers: TMS Administration

Monday 5:30 PM
March 15, 2021
Room: RM 9
Location: TMS2021 Virtual

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Batteries Made with Calcium Could Be Better for Electric Cars or Storing Renewable Energy: Colton Gerber¹; Michael Woodcox¹; Manuel Smeu¹; ¹Binghamton University
    In coming decades, energy storage demand is projected to increase greatly, in part due to accelerated transition to renewable energy and greater demand for electric cars. Multivalent-ion batteries (MVIBs) may offer an alternative to lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), as materials are orders of magnitude more plentiful and MVIB voltage and capacity may be able to match LIBs. Building off earlier work suggesting CaMn₂O₄ spinel cathodes may have favorable characteristics, this work focuses on calculating voltage profiles for MVIB spinel cathode supercells using DFT. Calculations showed a lower-than-expected voltage with Ca- and Mg-intercalated Mn₂O₄ cathodes. Previous work used a selective dynamics approach and included exchange-correlation corrections (DFT+U), which may be responsible for the difference. Future work should focus on whether assumptions of maintained symmetry produce accurate voltage calculations. Additionally, techniques such as machine learning could prove useful in finding lowest-energy structures.

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