Yan Yao, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, authored a research paper that was chosen as the cover of the January 2016 edition of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A. This paper, first-authored by Yao’s third year doctoral student Saman Gheytani, discusses the discovery of a method for a light-weight and corrosion-resistant coating for aqueous batteries.
“It is gratifying that our research is selected by the editor to highlight,” Yao said. Yao and Gheytani are working in collaboration with Jeff Xu at Southwest Research Institute to usher in a new generation of batteries that can serve as alternatives to traditional lithium-ion batteries supported by ARPA-E Robust Affordable Next Generation Energy Storage Systems (RANGE) program. The novel battery developed by the team is water based, and addresses the safety concerns and high manufacturing costs associated with lithium-ion batteries.
“When you use a lithium-ion battery on a small scale, for things like an iPhone or an iPad, battery safety could be easily managed,” Gheytani said. “It is in the large-scale energy storage applications, like electric vehicles and stationary energy storage systems, that you must have a very cheap and reliable battery because…they can explode and that is a major safety issue.”
Yao and Gheytani have developed a thin layer of coating, just a couple of nanometers thick, to protect the battery shell and avoid corrosion that can shorten the life of the battery. This chromate conversion coating (CCC) is a critical component in the development of the aqueous Li-ion battery because it guards the aluminum shell and current collectors from the water based solution.
Gheytani presented the research paper and the CCC aluminum foil discovery to receptive audiences at the University of Houston’s 11th annual Graduate Research Conference and the Beyond Lithium Ion Batteries VIII Conference at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
“This is a great opportunity for me to work in the energy storage field because I like the research we are working on and I believe this field is important to the public and future of the world. I am very happy to be a part of this community,” said Gheytani.
“I think one of the most important tasks of being a professor is to educate and train students to satisfy the challenges for the next generation workforce,” Yao said. “[Saman] is making big efforts and contributions to the team. This is his first paper and I know there are many more to come.”
The Journal of Materials Chemistry A is a core journal for academic and industrial scientists involved in materials research. The journal publishes an intentionally broad scope of topics covering all aspects of the production of materials or the properties or applications of materials related to energy storage and conversion, sustainability or living.