MRI: Acquisition of a spark plasma sintering system for engineering advanced energy materials and materials science education

这份授予德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的合同是为了获得火花等离子烧结（SPS）系统。火花等离子烧结是近年来出现的一种用于材料合成和固化的创新技术。在SPS中，外部压力和脉冲电流同时应用，以增强各种陶瓷，金属和复合粉末的巩固。局部加热主要发生在粒子之间的间隙，在那里施加的电场引起火花并形成高能等离子体。这样可以在较短的时间内完成固结，从而有效地控制和防止晶粒生长和离子扩散。这些独特的特性使得SPS适用于制造更复杂的材料，如具有特定界面结构的非均质材料、纳米结构材料和复合材料。SPS系统将用于开发用于能源应用的新材料，如回收废热的热电材料、有效地将化学能直接转化为电能的高温固体氧化物燃料电池、用于高压锂离子电池的固态电解质，以及具有高耐腐蚀性和低电接触电阻的低温聚合物电解质燃料电池板。SPS系统将成为德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校材料制造的主要设施之一。该系统将通过材料科学与工程项目进行管理，并将供校园内的研究人员使用。SPS技术增加了一种新的能力，可以探索更广泛的材料，这些材料不能用传统的烧结方法制造。SPS技术的研究活动将被纳入德克萨斯材料研究所的研究生课程。除了关于SPS技术的讲座外，这种新设备的可用性将为材料科学专业的学生提供先进材料合成技术的优秀实践经验。pi和他们的学生将在探索UT的校园开放日上为初高中学生以及公众和K-12学生提供清洁能源实验的讲座和/或示范。

This award to the University of Texas at Austin is for the acquisition of a Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) system. Spark plasma sintering is an innovative technique that emerged in recent years for material syntheses and consolidation. In SPS both external pressure and pulsed current are applied simultaneously to enhance the consolidation of a wide range of ceramic, metallic, and composite powders. Local heating occurs primarily at gaps between particles where the applied electric field induces sparks and the formation of a high-energy plasma. As a result the consolidation can be completed within a shorter time, which allows grain growth and ion diffusion to be efficiently controlled and prevented. These unique features makes SPS suitable to fabricate more complex materials such as heterogeneous materials with specifically defined interface structure, nanostructured materials, and composite materials. The SPS system will be used to develop novel materials for energy applications such as thermoelectrics to recover waste heat, high-temperature solid oxide fuel cells to efficiently convert chemical energy directly into electricity, solid-state electrolytes for high-voltage lithium ion batteries, and low temperature polymer-electrolyte fuel cell plates with high corrosion resistance and low electrical contact resistance.The SPS system will be one of the major facilities for materials fabrication at the University of Texas at Austin. The system will be managed through the Materials Science and Engineering Program and will be accessible to researchers across campus. The SPS technique adds a new capability to explore a much broader range of materials that cannot be made using conventional sintering. Research activities with the SPS technique will be integrated into the graduate curriculum in the Texas Materials Institute. In addition to lectures on the SPS technique, the availability of this new equipment will offer students in the materials science program an excellent hands-on experience with an advanced materials synthesis techniques. The PIs and their students will give lectures and/or demonstrations of clean energy experiments to students at middle and high schools as well as to the general public and K-12 students at Explore UT, a campus-wide open house.