Lithium-ion batteries are recognized for their high energy density in everything from mobile phones to laptop computers and electric vehicles, but as the need for grid-scale energy storage and other applications becomes more pressing, researchers have sought less expensive and more readily available alternatives to lithium.

Researchers say $1M Project Will Improve Understanding, Optimization

Solid-state lithium batteries have generated interest because they don’t carry the same risk of fire and explosion as conventional batteries with liquid electrolytes, but full-scale commercialization has been slowed, in part, because scientists don’t fully understand what causes the batteries to fail.

ORGANIC CATHODE OFFERS MORE RELIABLE CONTACT WITH ELECTROLYTE, A KEY TO STABILITY

Solid-state sodium-ion batteries are far safer than conventional lithium-ion batteries, which pose a risk of fire and explosions, but their performance has been too weak to offset the safety advantages. Researchers Friday reported developing an organic cathode that dramatically improves both stability and energy density.

Two Cullen College of Engineering professors at the University of Houston – Zhu Han, John and Rebecca Moores professor of electrical and computer engineering, with expertise in the field of computer science; and Yan Yao, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and a principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity – are on a list of researchers whose work has been most often cited by colleagues in their resp

Conrad and Yao sweep 'Associate Professor' category

The Cullen College of Engineering faculty swept the associate professor category of the University of Houston’s Awards for Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity for the 2017-18 academic year.

A paper about safer batteries made with organic materials written by a team of researchers at the UH Cullen College of Engineering made the cover of one of the world’s most prestigious chemistry journals — Angewandte Chemie International Edition, published by German publisher Wiley-VCH.

Nanostructured Cathode, Understanding of New Electrolyte Lead to Greater Efficiency

Magnesium batteries offer promise for safely powering modern life – unlike traditional lithium ion batteries, they are not flammable or subject to exploding – but their ability to store energy has been limited.

Assistant Professor Yan Yao and several electrical and computer engineering and material science students have founded the first Electrochemical Society student chapter (UH ECS) at UH.

Karun Kumar Rao, a first-year chemical engineering doctoral student in the UH Cullen College of Engineering, has been offered a place in the esteemed NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF) program for his research on solid-state batteries.