Speaker: Dr. Choongho Yu
Abstract Details: 

This seminar presents two exciting outcomes and progresses with nanostructured carbon in energy conversion and storage. Nanostructured graphitic carbon has been utilized to simultaneously harvest and store electrical energy from thermal energy as well as improve the performance of lithium-sulfur batteries.

The first part of the seminar will introduce a novel energy storage device called “thermally” chargeable supercapacitors based on thermally induced ion transport. This device has been developed with polyelectrolytes as an energy harvesting unit as well as redox polymer-coated composite electrodes made of graphene and carbon nanotubes. Upon imposing a temperature gradient, this device simultaneously harvested and stored electrical energy with output voltage up to 2.1 V. The output voltage is high enough for operating small electronics unlike conventional thermoelectrics, suggesting the feasibility of thermal energy harvesting from low-grade heat sources such as body heat and heat-dissipating objects.

The second part presents self-assembled, porous 3D carbon nanotube structures and the modifications on their surfaces to create trench walls using mechano-chemical treatments. The trench-wall nanotubes act as dual hosts for high-areal-capacity sulfur cathodes and lithium anodes, delivering the energy density of Li-S batteries over those of conventional Li-ion batteries. This nano-trench strategy suggests a new way of designing graphitic carbon materials for high-energy-density batteries.

About The Speaker: 

Dr. Choongho Yu is currently a professor and holder of the G. Paul Pepper ‘54 Professorship. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and worked as a postdoc in the Materials Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory prior to joining TAMU. His research is closely related to energy conversion/storage and electrochemical systems. Specific research topics include Li-S, Li-ion, and low-cost metal batteries, thermally chargeable supercapacitors, thermal energy storage with phase change materials, thermoelectric materials, and thermal transport in nanostructured materials.

This webinar is over. You may watch the recorded video in our YouTube page at: https://youtu.be/ZOxI4HD7XAk

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