Imagining, building, and understanding the next-generation battery
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Harnessing electricity marked the beginning of the industrial revolution; making it portable completely transformed modern society. Battery technology has largely enabled the conveniences of social connectivity and mobile services we enjoy today. However, current batteries are rapidly approaching their fundamental limits. To make a lasting impact in emerging applications such as electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage, better batteries that can store more energy in a safe manner need to be developed. Innovations and breakthroughs in such technologies require a synergistic and interdisciplinary combination of materials design (chemistry, engineering) and fundamental characterization (materials science, physics). In my Ph.D., I demonstrate successful examples within these two major thrusts, which will not only bring practical applications in the short-term, but also establish fundamental insights that are necessary to facilitate long-term solutions. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 focus on the first major thrust of this dissertation: materials design. Chapters 1 and 2 are an introduction to batteries. In chapter 1, I detail the history, working mechanisms, and limitations of the current state-of-the-art batteries based on lithium chemistry. In chapter 2, I provide an overview of the two most relevant candidates for next-generation battery anode materials: silicon and lithium metal. Intrinsic failure modes, previous solutions, and remaining challenges will be discussed. Chapter 3 summarizes my graphene cage design to stabilize the silicon anode. With such a design (patent pending), the long-standing obstacles have been addressed. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 explore the second major thrust of this dissertation: fundamental discovery. In chapter 4, I explain the key fundamental working principles of the transmission electron microscope (TEM), a powerful characterization technique that can enable atomic-level observations with both structural and chemical information. In chapter 5, I discuss the in situ TEM studies that revealed the nanoscale corrosion and passivation mechanisms of lithium metal. In chapter 6, I highlight the breakthrough cryogenic electron microscopy technique I pioneered for use in battery materials. Finally in chapter 7, I conclude with the implications of my Ph.D. work and comment on the exciting future directions that can be pursued in the future.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Li, Yuzhang | |
|---|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- | |
| Thesis advisor | Cui, Yi, 1976- | |
| Thesis advisor | Bao, Zhenan | |
| Thesis advisor | Sinclair, Robert | |
| Degree committee member | Bao, Zhenan | |
| Degree committee member | Sinclair, Robert | |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Yuzhang Li. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Yuzhang Li
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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