Speaker: Yuan Yang, Columbia University
Program Description:
High-performance energy storage, conversion and management are critical to a sustainable future. Among various energy technologies, electrochemical energy storage and thermal energy management are of particular importance. In both cases, high-performance materials are urgently needed to address these energy challenges. In this talk I will present two examples in characterizing and designing materials for energy storage and management. The first one is interfacial stabilization in solid polymer electrolyte-based lithium metal batteries. Lithium metal deposition is stabilized by phase transformation-enhanced mechanical strength of polymer electrolytes, and electrolyte oxidation on cathode surface is suppressed by interfacial coatings. Synchrotron imaging also provides insight into the mechanism of stabilization. The second example is mesoporous polymers for passive daytime radiative cooling. The strong light scattering at the polymer/air interface and unique optical properties of polymers lead to high solar reflectance of 96% and high thermal emittance of 0.97. Such polymer films cool spontaneously even under strong sunlight, which is attractive for building and personal thermal management.
References:
1. Mandal, J et al., Hierarchically porous polymer coatings for highly efficient passive daytime radiative cooling. Science, 362, 315-319 (2018).
2. Cheng, Q et al., Operando and Three-Dimensional Visualization of Anion Depletion and Lithium Growth by Stimulated Raman Scattering Microscopy, Nature Communications, 9, 2942 (2018)
Bio:
Dr. Yuan Yang is currently an associate professor of materials science in department of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia University. He received his B.S. in physics at Peking University in 2007, followed by the completion of his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at Stanford University in 2012. After three years as a postdoc in the department of mechanical engineering at MIT, he joined Columbia University in 2015. Dr. Yang’s research interests include advanced energy storage and thermal energy management. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers with a total citation over 25,000 times. He is a Scialog fellow on Advanced Energy Storage and a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher in 2020. He has won Young Innovator Award by Nano Research, Emerging Investigators Award by Journal of Materials Chemistry A.
