Where Is Energy Storage Headed? Integrating Experimental and Computational Approaches Across Scales

The Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy hosts four virtual workshops on the overarching challenges facing electrochemical systems for use in transportation and grid-level energy storage. The series brings together academic researchers and industry experts to discuss common problems and brainstorm approaches for overcoming these obstacles across electrochemical systems such as batteries, fuel cells, electrolyzers, and capacitors.

Co-sponsored by the Boston University College of Engineering and the Division of Materials Science & Engineering.

Understanding electrochemical systems from the atomic through continuum scale is critical to designing next-generation systems. Integrated experimental and computational approaches are needed to fully understand the multi-scale phenomena of electrochemical systems. A focus on electronic structure and atomic level modeling has provided great insights into the chemistry of electrochemical systems; however, to design better batteries, fuel cells, capacitors, etc., an understanding of how these nano-scale phenomena affect meso- and macro-scale devices is necessary. Likewise, while powerful characterization tools and methods have been developed to experimentally understand these systems, integration with computation is needed to fully utilize the knowledge gained from experiments. In this workshop, the opportunities and challenges of integrating experimental and computational tools across scales will be discussed, including issues of bridging scales, disconnects between experimental data and modeling parameters, and challenges associated with in situ and operando characterization.

Speakers:

Fikile Brushett, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Topic: Combining Experiment and Computation to Advance Redox Flow Batteries for Grid Energy Storage

Partha Mukherjee, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
Topic: Electrochemical Physics and Analytics at Scales

David Prendergast, Facility Director, Theory of Nanostructured Materials, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Topic: Simulating Electrochemically Relevant Interfaces Coupled with X-ray Spectroscopy

Moderated by Sahar Sharifzadeh, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Division of Materials Science & Engineering, Boston University