Large scale adoption of sustainable technologies for energy productionand storage can be greatly facilitated by scientific advances impacting efficiency, cost and availability. The study of materials is instrumental in both upgrading the performance of existing technologies and enabling the development of new ones, and ab-initio methods and machine learning represent...
Transitioning energy systems from a reliance on fossil fuels to low carbon energy sources is an essential solution for climate change mitigation. However, the industrial sector, which is directly responsible for more than a quarter of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, continues to use fossil fuels for energy and feedstocks....
Solid acid fuel cells confer unique advantages over nearby technologies, such as polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) or solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), due to the solid acid electrolyte – a solid-state, anhydrous, intermediate-temperature proton conductor.Despite these encouraging unique properties, solid acid fuel cells have performed unfavorably in comparison...
Lithium-ion battery technology is a critically important component of the emerging renewable energy infrastructure. Since battery technology was first commercialized in the 1990s, significant progress has been made in materials development, motivated by the prospect of higher energy and power densities, increased cycling longevity, and faster charging and discharging rates....
Organic photovoltaics offer an opportunity to make solar cells more affordable and widely accessible using cheap, solution-processable light-absorbing layers. In order to realize new technologies, a fundamental understanding of organic chromophore photophysics is required to overcome efficiency limitations. Throughout this doctoral work, I investigated the kinetic and physical characteristics of...
Solid oxide fuel and electrolysis cells (SOFCs and SOECs) must be engineered with the entire lifetime of their performance in mind. Electrochemical activity will decrease as degradative processes take effect, leading to higher overpotentials and decreased power outputs. Materials science and engineering can stave off these inefficiencies through an understanding...
With the rapid growth of demand for data center services, the energy and water use of data centers has become a critical concern in the contexts of energy use, climate change, and freshwater conservation. Therefore, understanding, quantifying, and optimizing the use of energy and water resources in data centers has...
Thermoelectric devices utilize semiconducting n-type and p-type thermoelectric materials to convert heat into electricity. Despite their promise for deep space power generation or waste heat recovery, most high-performing thermoelectric materials reported in literature are absent in practical applications - partially due to inconsistent synthesis and poor mechanical performance. This work...
Electrochemical devices play a vital role in the efforts towards a sustainable green future. Solid acid based electrochemical cells, employing super protonic CsH2PO4 (CDP) as the electrolyte component, offer unique application advantages due to their operability at intermediate temperatures 250°C. At these temperatures, one can achieve improved reaction kinetics over...
Two-step, solar thermochemical water splitting using nonstoichiometric oxides has emerged as an attractive approach for large-scale hydrogen production. Perovskite-structured oxides, with their wide tunability, offer the potential for high fuel productivity at moderate operating temperatures. Given the vast chemical space, the materials development effort is carried out here in combination...