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[2016-06-27] Explorations in Dioxygen Electrochemistry

Posted：2016-06-24  Visits：

Title: Explorations in Dioxygen Electrochemistry 
Speaker: Prof. Laurence Hardwick (University of Liverpool, UK)
Date/Time: 10:00 AM, Jun.27, 2016(Mon.)     
Location: Room 234 in the Chemistry Building  

Abstract :


Two questions rattle around regular in battery research. Can we get anything better than Li-ion batteries? If so, how long do we have to wait for it?
On paper secondary metal-air batteries (such as lithium-air) offer chemists a vision of a battery system that will not only surpass energy storage of state of the art Li-ion, but dramatically exceed it by a factor of three to five. The resulting theoretical numbers on specific energy (Wh/kg) has led to the extrapolation whereby Li-air could be envisioned to provide a technology that could result in an electric vehicle being able to travel for 300 miles without recharge. A worthy goal indeed, if we are to prise significant percentages of the population to part from their fossil fuelled vehicles. However pleasant it is to dream, we have to eventually wake up to reality in order to address the exciting list of research challenges that need to be overcome.

My presentation will begin by discussing the present state of play of metal-air battery research and challenges and then will continue with my specific research interest in this area, which is to understand the interfacial electrode processes involving dioxygen.

Electrode interfacial chemistry varies in scale from sub nm (surface adsorption of reaction intermediates) up to ca. 50-100 nm (solid electrolyte interphase formation). Detection and discrimination of the interfacial region from either the bulk electrode and/ or bulk electrolyte is a substantial technical challenge and requires careful design and control of the experimental conditions.

At Liverpool, my group utilises a number of highly sensitive in situ electrochemical spectroscopic techniques to investigate chemistry at the electrode interface with the sensitivity at the nm scale. I will talk about activities to study the electrochemistry of dioxygen with in situ Raman (surface enhanced and shell isolated nanoparticle variations - SERS and SHINERS) and infrared (surface enhanced infrared absorption - SEIRAS) spectroscopy. The results of which have major relevance to understanding mechanistic processes within metal-air batteries.

Biography:


Laurence Hardwick holds the position of Reader (Associate Professor) at the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy within the Department of Chemistry at the University of Liverpool (UK), where since 2011, he has been working on investigating the reaction mechanisms of metal-air batteries and the development of surface sensitive in situ electrochemical Raman and infrared spectroscopies for the examination of more applied electrochemical interfaces.

He received his MChem in Chemistry in 2003 from the University of Southampton (UK) and PhD in Chemistry from ETH-Zurich (Switzerland) in 2006. Before joining the faculty at Liverpool, he spent his postdoctoral time working in the US at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) investigating Li-ion battery electrode degradation mechanisms and lithium ion diffusion pathways through carbon, followed by studying the chemical and electrochemical processes in lithium-oxygen cells at the University of St Andrews (UK).

He has (co)authored >50 papers in refereed journals, and has helped organise and chair numerous national (UK) and international electrochemistry symposia.