Please join us as Dr. Steen Schougaard discusses the critical sub-processes of lithium-ion battery charging and discharging, some recent advances towards characterizing them and the opportunity for further discovery.
Abstract
Lithium-ion batteries have become the go-to system for energy storage in handheld and laptop devices, owing to their comparably high energy density. As these devices become increasing important in larger scale applications, like electric vehicles and power grid load levelling, new challenges arise. One of these challenges is improving power performance. For example, increasing the driving range of electric vehicles through frequent rapid charges rather than using larger batteries seems preferable when cost, environmental impact and energy consumption are considered.
The current state of the art when modelling batteries for R&D is an approach, commonly known as “Newman model,” that is based on a series of material and geometry dependent parameters. Surprisingly, no experimental technique directly measures a large number of these parameters. Or, rather, the technique available provide values with large confidence intervals. It is, therefore, common practice to “fit” these values. As with all multi-variable non-linear fitting, this leads to concerns about general validity. To counter this situation, Dr. Schougaard’s group has developed a number of techniques that allow measurement of some critical parameters.
In this talk, Dr. Schougaard will present the critical sub-processes that make up lithium-ion battery charging and discharging. This will be followed by the presentation of some recent advances towards characterizing them, as well as an overview of where there is still plenty of room for discovery.
Biographical Sketch
Steen B. Schougaard, is the department director and professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). A native of Denmark, he received this MSc degree from the University of Copenhagen before attending the Chemistry PhD program of the University of Texas at Austin. This was followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship with Professor Goodenough, also at UT-Austin, and a staff researcher position at RISØ Danish National Laboratory.
At the UQAM, he has developed, in close collaboration with industry, a research program around lithium-ion batteries, which includes atomistic to mesoscale modelling, advanced in situ characterization techniques and conducting polymer composites.