Energy Materials Center at Cornell: Final Report

Technical Report · Fri Jan 02 00:00:00 EST 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1166893· OSTI ID:1166893

Abruña, Héctor ^[1]; Mutolo, Paul F ^[1]

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1. Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)

The mission of the Energy Materials Center at Cornell (emc²) was to achieve a detailed understanding, via a combination of synthesis of new materials, experimental and computational approaches, of how the nature, structure, and dynamics of nanostructured interfaces affect energy conversion and storage with emphasis on fuel cells, batteries and supercapacitors. Our research on these systems was organized around a full system strategy for; the development and improved performance of materials for both electrodes at which storage or conversion occurs; understanding their internal interfaces, such as SEI layers in batteries and electrocatalyst supports in fuel cells, and methods for structuring them to enable high mass transport as well as high ionic and electronic conductivity; development of ion-conducting electrolytes for batteries and fuel cells (separately) and other separator components, as needed; and development of methods for the characterization of these systems under operating conditions (operando methods) Generally, our work took industry and DOE report findings of current materials as a point of departure to focus on novel material sets for improved performance. In addition, some of our work focused on studying existing materials, for example observing battery solvent degradation, fuel cell catalyst coarsening or monitoring lithium dendrite growth, employing in operando methods developed within the center.

• Research Organization: Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• DOE Contract Number: SC0001086
• OSTI ID: 1166893
• Report Number(s): DOE-CU-01086
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

25 ENERGY STORAGE
08 HYDROGEN
30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
42 ENGINEERING
batteries
fuel cells
super capacitors
interfaces
hydrogen
operando techniques
materials
oxides