Month: August 2012

Aqueous Rechargeable Lithium Batteries (ARLBs) of Super-fast Charging like Filling Gasoline

MSE Seminar
Friday, August 17, 2012
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Room 610, M&M Building

Prof. Yuping Wu
New Energy and Materials Laboratory (NEML), Department of Chemistry
Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Abstract

A lot of efforts including funding and investment have been paid to try to solve two crucial issues for lithium ion batteries: safety and fast charging. However, due to the inner nature of lithium ion batteries, which use combustible organic electrolytes of low ionic conductivity, these efforts are evidently in vain. As a result, new energy storage systems for electric vehicles and smart grid are urgently needed to improve energy efficiency and reduce emission of CO2. Since 1996 we have been pioneering on aqueous rechargeable lithium batteries (ARLBs). In this talk, our latest progress on this aspect will be expounded especially on the improving super-fast charging performance, which can be comparable with filling gasoline for traditional engine cars, increasing energy density and achieving excellent cycling life of over
10000 cycles.

Bio: Prof. Wu got Ph. D. degree from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China in 1997. Then he moved to Tsinghua University, Beijing, for postdoctor research. From 1999 to 2001, he stayed in Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan as a visiting researcher. From 2001 to 2003, he stayed in Chemnitz University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany as a Humboldt Fellow. In 2003, he came back to China as a full professor in Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Since 1994, he has published over 170 papers on peer-reviewed journals such as Angew. Chem. Int. Edi., Prog. Mater. Sci., Energ. Environ. Sci., Chem. Mater., J. Mater. Chem., Chem. Commun., Electrochem. Commun., Carbon, and J. Power Sources. As a main author, he has contributed 5 monographs on lithium batteries in Chinese whose sale is above 23,000 copies, and 3 chapters. His citation is above 2400, and H-index is 27.
In December, 2003 he won “Star of the Century” from Fudan University. In July, 2004 he achieved “Rising Star” from Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology. In 2004, he was invited to act as an associate editor of Research Journal of Chemistry & Environment.
In April 2007 he joined the editorial advisory board of Electrochem. Commun. (IF>4) In November, 2008 he got JSPS Invitation Fellowship from Japan. In 2009, he was invited to act as an associate editor of The e-Polymers Journal. In June, 2009 he was awarded “Excellent Rising Star” by Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality. In March, 2010 he won the Visiting lecturer by Chemistry Research Promotion Center of Taiwan, China In April, 2010 he was granted a Visiting professor by Malaysia University, Malaysia for 3 months.
His main research work is on anode materials, cathode materials and polymer electrolytes for lithium ion batteries, supercapacitors, novel energy storage systems such as aqueous rechargeable lithium batteries (ARLBs), and production of hydrogen by utilizing solar energy.
So far he has been invited to deliver over 50 plenary and invited lectures in international symposiums and 26 lectures at oversea institutes.
Cochairman of serial conference of IUPAC International Conference on Novel Materials and their Synthesis (NMS: www.nmsiupac.org) since 2006.

Pearce Research in Environmental Health Perspectives

SODIS
The SODIS Method

The research of Associate Professor Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) on solar water disinfection was featured in the August issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

Purifying Drinking Water with Sun, Salt, and Limes

Sun, salt, and lime juice may sound like ingredients for a vacation margarita, but recent research suggests they can also be used to help purify drinking water easily and cheaply—the type of solutions needed by millions of people in developing countries.

According to research leader Joshua Pearce, an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Michigan Technological University, if you can read the headlines of a newspaper placed under a bottle of water, you have reduced the turbidity to below the 30-NTU SODIS threshold. “This provides an easy-to-understand sign for people outside of a laboratory that water has been sufficiently cleared for the SODIS treatment to work,” he says.

Read more at Environmental Health Perspectives, by Adrian Burton.