2015 MRS Spring Meeting: Mechanics of Energy Storage and Conversion

The abstract submission is open now, http://www.mrs.org/spring2015/, and will be due on Oct. 23.

Symposium H: Mechanics of Energy Storage and Conversion─Batteries, Thermoelectrics and Fuel Cells

As advanced energy systems with enhanced conversion efficiencies, improved storage capacities, and better reliabilities are being developed to meet the global energy needs of the world’s growing population, mechanics has emerged as one of the key factors that affect the performance of energy materials. In thermoelectric energy conversion to harvest sunlight and recover waste heats, thermal stress is a big concern for reliabilities, and the efficiency and reliability of photovoltaic materials is similarly affected by both strain and the presence of mechanical defects. In electric energy storage, the capacity and cyclic stability of lithium ion batteries are often limited by stress and strain induced during ion intercalation and extraction, despite much higher capacity promised by thermodynamics, and mechanical deformation has been found to be a key factor that directly impacts the functionality of capacitors including the so-called quantum nanocapacitance. The importance of mechanical properties of materials for renewable energies, such as wind and tide energies, is also widely recognized, and the very nature of vibration energy harvesting is mechanical. It is evident that mechanical issues are universal in all aspects of energy conversion, storage, and harvesting, and mechanics plays critical role in the performances of advanced energy materials and systems.

In the last few years, there have been rapid advances in modeling, simulations, and characterizations of mechanical behavior of advanced energy materials and systems. In lithium-ion batteries, transmission electron microscopy and electrochemical strain microscopy have enabled direct observation of lithium ion intercalation and extraction in-situ, with atomic resolution, and ab initio calculations and phase field simulations has offered key insights on kinetics and dynamics of phase transformation in lithium iron phosphate. In thermoelectrics, novel module design that mitigates thermal stress has been proposed, and nanostructured materials with advanced interface engineering and superior thermoelectric figure of merit have been developed. The importance of mechanics in all aspects of energy conversion, storage, and harvesting has become widely recognized, and tremendous opportunities arise for further understanding of mechanics in energy materials for superior performance. 

Topics will include:

• Electrochemical strain of Li-ion batteries and solid state fuel cells
• Design, analysis, homogenization and optimization of thermoelectrics
• Mechanical issues in solar energy conversion
• Mechanics of nanocapacitors
• Mechanics of hydrogen storage materials
• Energy harvesting of mechanical vibrations
• Reliabilities and fatigues of materials for renewable energy
• Radiation damages of materials for nuclear energy
• Advanced characterization techniques on different scales
• Multi-scale modeling, simulation and theory of advanced energy materials
• Mechanics guided material designs and optimizations

Invited speakers include:

Kaushik Bhattacharya (California Inst. of Technology, USA), Nicholas Boechler (Univ. of Washington, USA), Yang-Tse Cheng (Univ. of Kentucky, USA), George Crabtree (Argonne National Lab, USA), Daining Fang (Peking Univ., China), Sossina Haile (California Inst. of Technology, USA), Marc Kamlah (Karlsruhe Univ., Germany), Mercouri Kanatzidis(Northwestern Univ., USA), Alexander Korsunsky (Univ. of Oxford, United Kingdom), Roger Proksch (Asylum Research, USA), Yue Qi (Michigan State Univ., USA), Joost Vlassak(Harvard Univ., USA), Tongyi Zhang (Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong), Yong-wei Zhang (Inst. of High Performance Computing, Singapore), Kejie Zhao (Purdue Univ., USA).

Symposium Organizers

Jiangyu Li
University of Washington
USA
Tel: 206-543-6226, jjli@uw.edu

John Huber
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
Tel: 44-1865-2-83478, john.huber@eng.ox.ac.uk

Kaiyang Zeng
National University of Singapore
Singapore 
Tel: 65-6516 6627, mpezk@nus.edu.sg

Haleh Ardebili
University of Houston
USA
Tel: 713-743-5562, hardebili@uh.edu