With the energy storage market on an exponential growth curve, due to the need to stabilise the expected increase in intermittent wind and solar electricity generation, the need for high-performing, safe, environmentally friendly and affordable energy storage has become a pressing human need. With Li-ion and Na-ion battery systems still prone to serious safety issues such as flammability, and problems with materials availability and cost, the use of toxic materials and recyclability issues, there is a strong drive to research chemistries that offer similar performance to Li-ion without these drawbacks. Aluminium is the third most abundant material in the Earth’s crust and unlike lithium is not intrinsically flammable; it also has higher theoretical volumetric energy density (8.0 Ah cm-3 vs. ~2 Ah cm-3), and comparable gravimetric energy density (3.0 Ah g-1 for Al vs. 3.9 Ah g-1 for Li). The doping/dedoping of aluminium into PEDOT will be modelled at the nano-scale using a 3D representation of the PEDOT microstructure. This will capture the porosity and surface area characteristics of the PEDOT, based on imaging from experimental results. A Finite Element or Finite Difference approach may be used to capture the relevant parameters such as lattice strain and forces. As the project progresses, the model will be made time and temperature dependent, so that cumulative effects of cycling are captured, with the aim of predicting degradation behaviour of the PEDOT electrode at different thermal conditions, helping to reveal the true potential of this battery chemistry.
Ben Craig is a Mechanical Engineer, who completed an Integrated Masters (MEng with Advanced Materials specialism) at the University of Southampton in 2013. Before joining the Centre for Doctoral Training he worked for 3.5 years as an Air Propulsion Engineer at Dstl (UK Ministry of Defence), conducting thermodynamic modelling of military jet engines, becoming the MOD lead for air propulsion modelling with training and technical management responsibility. Having personal experience of how modelling complements experimental development in aerospace engineering, he brings a strong motivation to develop Al-PEDOT battery modelling to help accelerate the pioneering developmental work on alternative rechargeable battery chemistries.
Carlos Ponce de León is an associate professor at the University of Southampton with over 100 research papers on redox flow batteries for energy storage, metal-air batteries, hydrogen-oxygen and borohydride fuel cells, metal ion removal/oxidation of organic compounds in wastewater, and nanodeposition. External examiner for several universities, supervises PhD, MSc and BSc students and is responsible for research and consultancy projects for companies, EPSRC, FP7, Dstl. He has been invited to present lectures and has organised several international symposia and conferences in electrochemistry.
Andrew Cruden is Professor of Energy Technology at the University of Southampton and Co-Director of the joint University of Sheffield and University of Southampton EPSRC CDT in Energy Storage and its Applications. This CDT (EP/L016818/1) currently has 32 students involved in PhD and research training in the fields of materials, modelling and energy storage systems studies and will continue to recruit over 10 students/year until a maximum cohort size of some 50+ students is achieved. Details of these student activities and outputs are available on the CDT website: www.energystorage-cdt.ac.uk. Prof Cruden is also directly involved in a number of other major energy storage related projects, funded by EPSRC, European Union and Innovate-UK.
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