Dr. Gao Liu, Senior Scientist and Group Leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will give a seminar titled "Achieving Fast Ion Transport and High Ionic Conductivity in Glassy Polymers Via Higher Order Molecular Structure Design" to the interested faculty and students at Discovery Park.

Abstract

Many components inside of a lithium battery are soft materials, providing important functions for its high performance and long lifetime. Electrode binders are an example of this soft material as a critical component of lithium-ion batteries electrode. Our lab has conducted research on functional polymer binders for advanced battery for over a decade. In this presentation, we will report our recent work to re-design multifunctional conductive polymers to achieve both high electronic conductivity and ionic conductivity. In the conventional design of conductive polymers, organic functionalities are introduced via bottom-up synthetic approaches to enhance specific properties by modification of the individual polymers. Unfortunately, the addition of functional groups leads to conflicting effects, limiting their scaled synthesis and broad applications. Here we show a conductive polymer with simple primary building blocks that can be thermally processed to develop hierarchically ordered structures (HOS) with well-defined ordered morphologies. Our approach to constructing permanent HOS in conductive polymers leads to fast ion-transport, high ionic and electronic conductivity properties, and mechanical robustness, which are critical for many electrochemical applications. I will further discuss the variable structures of the polymers, and specific applications of this class of dual charge multifunctional polymeric conductors for battery applications.

Bio

Dr. Gao Liu is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader of the Applied Energy Materials Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Dr. Liu has over 20 years of experience in developing materials and system engineering for electrical energy storage. Liu’s research combines synthetic chemistry, composite engineering and electrochemistry to solve interdisciplinary problems in energy generation, storage and usage. The Dr. Liu’s lab uses advanced diagnostics to understand fundamental and critical issues in energy systems, and synthetic techniques to develop new materials that improve overall system performance. Dr. Liu pioneered the multifunctional conductive polymer adhesive research. Dr. Liu’s electrode binder research contributes to the fundamental understanding of behaviors of the polymeric binder in the composite electrode, and leads to rational design of functional electrode binders for new storage chemistries. Dr. Liu’s on-going researches in energy storage cover electrode binder, silicon, sulfur and lithium metal materials, electrode engineering, electrolytes and additives, and solid-state conductors. Besides energy storage research, Dr. Liu also performs materials and engineering research in building resiliency, circular economy, and advanced manufacturing. Dr. Liu has over 190 peer-reviewed publications and over 28 granted patents.