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

得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校获得的这一奖项是为了表彰其对放电等离子烧结(SPS)系统的收购。放电等离子烧结是近年来出现的一种用于材料合成和固结的创新技术。在SPS中，同时施加外压和脉冲电流，以增强各种陶瓷、金属和复合粉末的固结。局部加热主要发生在粒子之间的缝隙处，在那里施加的电场会产生火花并形成高能等离子体。因此，可以在较短的时间内完成固结，从而有效地控制和防止了晶粒长大和离子扩散。这些独特的特性使SPS适合于制备更复杂的材料，如具有特殊定义的界面结构的非均质材料、纳米结构材料和复合材料。SPS系统将用于开发新的能源应用材料，如回收余热的热电材料，高效将化学能直接转化为电能的高温固体氧化物燃料电池，高压锂离子电池的固态电解液，以及高耐蚀性和低接触电阻的低温聚合物-电解液燃料电池板。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和工程计划进行管理，整个校园的研究人员都可以访问该系统。SPS技术增加了一种新的能力，可以探索使用传统烧结无法获得的更广泛的材料范围。使用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，这种新设备的推出将为材料科学专业的学生提供具有先进材料合成技术的极好的动手体验。PI和他们的学生将向初中和高中的学生以及普通公众和探索UT的K-12学生讲授和/或演示清洁能源实验，这是一个校园开放参观活动。

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.