CHAPTER EIGHT: Techniques for Battery R&D - The first publicized battery was introduced in 1800, yet since that time there have been few advancements in their development. This chapter addresses the challenges in designing and testing batteries, and how many of the tools created in the last decade will help make advancements happen more rapidly in the coming years.
ABOUT THE SERIES: What advancements in batteries are being made and how can these improvements impact the consumer market and the environment? Would a renaissance in electric vehicles have an impact on emissions, or would it simply displace the emissions from the back of the vehicles to the power plants in our backyard? And what are the mechanics behind how a lithium ion battery works?
Don Siegel, an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan, conducts this BrownBag Learning series where he discusses the challenges in developing consumer products that rely on batteries and the opportunities to improve them.
ABOUT THE PROFESSOR: Don Siegel (https://me-web2.engin.umich.edu/pub/directory/bio?uniqname=djsiege ) is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering (http://me.engin.umich.edu/ ) at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. His primary research interests include the development of high-capacity materials and systems for energy storage applications; computational materials science; nanoscale chemistry and its impact on the mechanical properties of materials; thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformations; multi-scale modeling; and integrated computational materials engineering.
Siegel teaches Atomistic Computer Modeling of Materials at the University of Michigan, and works in the Energy Storage and Materials Simulation Lab (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~djsiege/Energy_Storage_Lab/ESMS_Lab_Home.html).
