April 13 @ 10:30 a.m. – noon
Refreshments will begin at 10:30 a.m. in ETRL 119
Seeing the Invisible: From Waste Heat Conversion to Electrochemical Storage
The School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering is hosting a seminar presented by Dr. Vinayak P. Dravid , Abraham Harris Chaired Professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Northwestern University
Biography:
Vinayak P. Dravid is Abraham Harris Chaired Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and the founding Director of Northwestern’s NUANCE (NU Atomic and Nanoscale Characterization Experimental) Center. He received his B.Tech. from IIT Bombay in 1984, and PhD from Lehigh University in 1990.Professor Dravid’s scholarly interests are at the heart of materials science and engineering, with implications to emerging opportunities in nano-bio-technology and energy. He has a diverse research portfolio covering advanced microscopy, nanotechnology, technology strategy, energy policy and emerging educational paradigms. He has authored over 475 archival journal publications, book chapters and holds more than two dozen issued/pending patents. Some of his patents are licensed to start-up companies in nanotechnology, sensor/diagnostic systems. One of his passions is to enhance societal and global appreciation for science and technology, especially of microscopy, materials science, nanotechnology, and energy/sustainability.
Abstract:
It is generally accepted that broad-based energy strategy must include a “portfolio” approach; spanning not only innovative approaches to energy “supply” but equally important considerations for energy “demand” (i.e., efficiency), storage and distribution. A great number of these innovations revolve around new materials and phenomena that encompass diverse length-scales and span orders of magnitudes in temporal scale. Materials microstructure and its dynamics, especially under external stimuli such as thermal, electrical or mechanical probing, underpin many of these phenomena which hold the key to improved understanding of energy conversion, storage and transport. The presentation will start with a brief and realistic coverage of the emerging and maturing themes in the context of energy sources, efficiency, charge storage and distribution. It will illustrate several examples of emerging excitements in nanostructured materials and systems for energy. It will cover nanostructured thermoelectrics which reversibly convert (waste) heat into useful electricity and Li and Na-based electrochemical storage systems which show remarkable stability and sustained energy release enabled by nanoscale phenomena. It will highlight the role of advanced and classical electron microscopy in unravelling the hierarchical architecture of the constituents and their intimate interplay in governing key phenomena in energy conversion and electrochemical storage. For thermoelectrics, it will be shown that emerging band structure and traditional phase diagram strategies can greatly enhance figure of merit, ZT, by reducing the thermal conductivity without significantly compromising charge transport. In-situ microscopy of electrochemical reactions in Li- and Na-based systems will be shown as examples of dynamic interplay between interfaces and surfaces, and need for real-time and real-space understanding of nucleation and growth phenomena during charging and discharging cycles. It will be argued that static and dynamic microscopy have vital role in understanding spatio-temporal phenomena in energy materials and systems.
