Engineering high-performance electrode interfaces for the electric vehicles of tomorrow

The Chemical Engineering Department is hosting a special undergraduate lecture about Engineering high-performance electrode interfaces for the electric vehicles of tomorrow. 

Biographical Sketch  

Born in France, I am the son of an English teacher and a dentist. I lived my formative years in the French Caribbean island of Martinique before immigrating to Canada where he studied Mechanical Engineering (B.Eng), Applied Physics (B.A.Sc), Electrical Engineering (M.A.Sc). I finished my formal education in Australia where I was awarded a PhD in Chemical Engineering. My original passion is in transportation and cars and I now pursue the engineering of Li-ion battery solutions for the next generation of electric vehicles.

Title: Engineering high-performance electrode interfaces for the electric vehicles of tomorrow

In the next couple of decades, nearly all developed countries, including Canada, wish to phase-out the sell of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to curb emissions of greenhouse gases in a global effort to combat climate change. Battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) are seen as the prime candidate to succeed ICEVs. However, BEVs still lack in competitiveness in terms if charging times compared to ICEVs as current batteries still require more than one hour to charge fully. This technological issue makes BEVs less desirable, and it is a major hurdle that prevents their mass adoption. In any battery, charging speeds are defined at a fundamental level by the rate of transport of charges throughout the many components of the battery, and in particular, the rate of transport through the interfaces between these component parts. These interfaces can be significantly improved and engineered to facilitate charge transport by producing novel covalent bonds between the heterogenous materials making up electrodes. We are going to explain how.