Title: Some New Territories of Topo-chemistry for Electrodes in Sustainable Batteries

Speaker: Dr. Xiulei Ji ( Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University)

Time: 10:00 a.m., Jan. 16th, 2018

Venue: Room 105, Shaw Engineering Building, Wushan Campus 

[Biography]

Dr. Xiulei (David) Ji graduated from Jilin University with B.Sc. in Chemistry in 2003. He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry under the guidance of Prof. Linda F. Nazar in the University of Waterloo, 2009. During 2010-2012, he was a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Galen D. Stucky’s group in the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Oregon State University. His primal research interest is to elucidate the basic structure-property correlation for electrode materials for sustainable energy storage. He has published 82 articles, in journals, including Nature Materials, Nature Chemistry, Nature Energy, J. Am. Chem. Soc., and Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., with total citations over 10,000 times (Google Scholar). He received 2016 NSF CAREER Award, and 2010 NSERC Postdoc Fellowship. Group website: http://jigroup.chem.oregonstate.edu/

[Abstract]

Energy storage is the missing enabler to facilitate the proliferation of renewable-but-intermittent solar and wind energy. There is one primary metric for stationary storage: levelized cost over the life time of devices. It is, thus, a must to rely on earth-abundant elements, which rules out lithium-based devices for the grid-scale storage purposes as lithium is relatively rare and its excavation is geopolitically challenged. This warrants attention for alternative rechargeable batteries. At Oregon State University, we seek fundamental understanding of operation principles of electrodes for new sustainable batteries, often via carbon-based materials. We take an iterative approach to gain knowledge by advanced characterization, including synchrotron X-ray, neutron scattering, and the associated pair distribution function studies, as well as integrated DFT computational studies to inform rational syntheses. We aim to elucidate the correlation between the local structural features of materials, i.e., defects and interlayer spacing, and their corresponding capacity contributions in hosting interesting charge carriers, such as Na-ions, K-ions, hydronium ions, and ammonium ions, which may lead to design principles of such electrodes in batteries. Furthermore, I will briefly discuss the basic thermodynamics in selecting suitable anion-hosting cathode materials in tackling challenges of dual-ion batteries.