Sustainable Energy Pathways: A Lab-to-Market Paradigm for the Optimal Design of Sustainable Energy Storage Materials

NSF可持续能源途径（SEP）计划，隶属于NSF可持续发展科学、工程和教育（SEES）倡议，将支持Se-Hee Lee教授及其在科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的同事开发新一代储能材料和设备的研究计划。研究团队包括在电池研发早期阶段具有材料科学、电池工程和环境与经济评估专业知识的研究人员。储能材料在寻找可持续的电动汽车运输解决方案方面发挥着至关重要的作用。目前开发这种材料的方法并没有考虑到目前用于设计电池的各种性能标准与可持续性目标之间的复杂权衡，包括生命周期成本和经济因素。在这个项目中，研究团队将采用多学科优化的概念来协调可持续性和材料设计问题。将建立一个新的多尺度建模框架来预测三维结构电极结构和电池布局的性能。该模型的开发将通过使用先进的实验技术对固态黄铁矿锂（SS-LP）电池的热力学和动力学特性进行基础研究来支持。将进行生命周期分析和环境影响研究，以评估拟议的电池技术在制造和使用方面的可持续性。通过将研究发现与正在进行的和新的教育活动相结合，各级学生（从K-12到研究生，包括来自代表性不足群体的学生）将接触到可再生能源的兴奋，特别是电动汽车的储能材料系统。跨学科、紧密结合的研究将为培养一批新的工程师和经济学家提供一个环境，他们不仅是各自学科领域的专家，而且了解可持续能源的更广泛背景，从而有能力领导设计一个新的可持续能源未来。拟议的研究将为设计储能材料创造一个新的范例，弥合材料研究与这些材料发挥关键作用的技术的环境和经济影响之间的差距。本次研究的重点是SS-LP电池，这是一种具有非凡性能的新型电池材料体系。SS-LP电池的开发有望在城市小容量汽车以外的市场取得重大突破。

The NSF Sustainable Energy pathways (SEP) Program, under the umbrella of the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative, will support the research program of Prof. Se-Hee Lee and co-workers at the University of Colorado at Boulder to develop a new generation of energy storage materials and devices. The team of investigators includes researchers with expertise in materials science, battery engineering and environmental and economic assessment at an early stage in battery research and development. Energy storage materials play a crucial role for finding a sustainable solution to transportation via electric vehicles. Today's approaches for developing such materials do not account of the complex tradeoffs between various performance criteria, currently used to design batteries, and sustainability goals, including life cycle costs and economic factors. In this project, the team of investigators will adopt concepts from multi-disciplinary optimization for coordinating the sustainability and material design problems. A novel multi-scale modeling framework will be established to predict the performance of 3-D structured electrode architectures and cell layouts. The model development will be supported by fundamental research on the thermodynamic and kinetics characteristics of solid state lithium pyrite (SS-LP) batteries, using advanced experimental techniques. Life-cycle analysis and environmental impact studies will be carried out to assess the sustainability of the proposed battery technology with respect to manufacturing and use. Through coupling research discoveries with ongoing and new educational activities, students at all levels (K-12 through graduate, including students from typically underrepresented groups) will be exposed to the excitement of renewable energy in general and the world of energy storage material systems for electric vehicles in particular. Interdisciplinary, tightly integrated research will provide an environment for educating a new cadre of engineers and economists, who will not only be experts in their disciplinary fields but also understand the broader context of sustainable energy and thus are equipped to lead the design of a new sustainable energy future.The proposed research will create a new paradigm to design energy storage materials bridging the gap between materials research and the environmental and economic impact of technologies in which these materials play a crucial role. The proposed research specifically focuses on SS-LP batteries, a new battery material system with extraordinary properties. The SS-LP battery development holds the promise of a major breakthrough in reaching a market beyond the small-capacity vehicles of urban drivers.