Prof. Daniel Brandell ( Uppsala University ) Thursday 23rd May 2019, 10:00
Institute Of Macromolecular Chemistry CAS Heyrovského Nám. 2, Prague 6
Despite the commercial success of the Li-ion battery technology – today present in everyday life in terms of portable electronics and electric vehicles – this is not a battery chemistry without short-comings. There is clearly a demand for batteries which can store more energy, at the same time not experience rapid ageing, being less costly and more safe. Solid polymer electrolytes can serve this purpose. Moreover, although we can foresee much improvement in this respect from the Li-ion batteries, there are certain limits for this system, which has led researchers in the area to explore “alternative” battery chemistries for the energy storage solutions of the future. These encompass a wide range of materials and systems, which all possess the ability of surpassing different properties of Li-ion batteries. Li-air and Li-sulfur batteries, for example, have much higher energy densities. Na-, K-, Mg- and Ca-batteries utilize more abundant materials. Organic electrodes are more sustainable and can be produced less costly. This presentation will highlight challenges associated with the current revolution in battery development, and how development of solid polymer electrolytes can aid the implementation of next-generation battery chemistries.
Prof. Daniel Brandell (born 1975) received his PhD in 2005 at Uppsala University, Sweden, on a thesis comprising Molecular Dynamics studies of polymer electrolytes for Li-ion batteries. After post-doctoral studies at Tartu University, Estonia, and Virginia Tech, USA, he returned to Uppsala University. Although he still is active in computational chemistry using both DFT calculations, MD simulations and FEM cell modelling, the core of his research activities today are experimental, and with a clear focus on Li-ion batteries and other ‘future’ battery chemistries such as Na-ion batteries, solid-state systems, Li-Sulfur, Organic batteries, etc. Current projects involve polymer electrolytes, interfacial studies, functional binders, organic electrodes, Li-S, battery ageing studies, etc. He has organized two main international conferences in these areas: the International Symposium on Polymer Electrolytes XV (Uppsala, 2016) and the Organic Battery Days (Uppsala, 2017). Brandell currently supervises >10 PhD students at Uppsala University, and has published >130 peer-reviewed journal publications. He holds several research grants, including an ERC consolidator grant from 2017, and has many collaboration projects with industry, not least vehicle industry. In 2016, he was appointed Professor in Materials Chemistry at Uppsala University.
Registration: free, please, register by sending email to Petr Šálek (salek@imc.cas.cz).
