Clean Energy for a Cleaner Tomorrow

Sustainable energy storage and conversion technologies are needed to tackle the emerging challenges caused by using fossil fuels and by global climate change. The excessive use of fossil fuels for the growing human population's energy demand poses a real threat to all living species. The difficulties associated with global climate change and carbon emission could be mitigated by transformational technologies that allow energy harvesting from renewable resources such as sunlight, wind, tidal waves, geothermal, etc.

In this presentation, Professor Arumugam Manthiram of the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Texas Materials Institute will explain the importance of implementing clean energy solutions and how this problem can be tackled at the intersection of physics, chemistry and materials science. As an active contributor to lithium-ion batteries' birth and development, Professor Manthiram will present the atomic picture of fundamental processes occurring in lithium-ion batteries as electrochemical devices. Lithium-ion batteries are among the most efficient energy storage systems invented so far, being used initially in portable consumer electronics leading to the wireless revolution. The presentation will include demonstrations of two energy storage systems: an aluminum metal-air fuel cell capable of supplying an electrical current in a non-rechargeable battery setting, and the cell components of a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery constructed in Dr. Manthiram's lab.