Rechargeable non-aqueous metal–oxygen batteries Faraday Discussion

Larry Curtiss is an Argonne Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory in the Materials Science Division. He is also a member of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), an Energy Storage Hub supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. His research has focused on computational chemistry including the development of new quantum chemical methods for accurate energy calculations and the application of computational methods to problems in materials science and chemistry including energy storage, catalysis, and carbon materials. His battery studies have focused on fundamental studies of advanced energy storage systems including charge and discharge chemistries in Li-O2 and Li-S batteries, design of new electrolytes for Li-ion and flow batteries, and modeling of solid state electrolyte interfaces in Li-ion batteries.   He has over published over 530 papers and is co-inventor on 8 patents.

Dr. Nagore Ortiz-Vitoriano is an Ikerbasque Research Associate, who has been spearheading metal-air research at CIC energiGUNE (Spain) since 2016, of which she became research line manager in 2018.

She obtained her doctorate in 2011 for her work on solid oxide fuel cells (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, Spain), during the course of which she undertook research stays at Risø DTU (Denmark) and Imperial College London (UK). In 2013 she was awarded a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship from the European Union, enabling her to join the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge (USA) where she worked with both lithium and sodium-air batteries. In 2015, she continued this fellowship at CIC energiGUNE, where she conducted research stays at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (USA), Deakin University (Australia) and Chalmers University (Sweden). Recently, she has been promoted to Ikerbasque Research Associate and granted the Ramon y Cajal fellowship financed by the European Commission's European Social Fund through the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Dr. Ortiz-Vitoriano has focused on both rational design of electrode and electrolyte materials for energy storage (e.g., solid oxide fuel cells, Na-ion and metal-air batteries), as well as fundamental research focused on elucidating key processes (by establishing relevant physiochemical models) in order to facilitate rapid future developments at both the material and system levels.

Dr. Jeff Sakamoto is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan (UM).  He is also the Director of the US Department of Energy, Energy Frontier Research Center, Mechano-chemical Understanding of Solid-Ion Conductors (MUSIC).  He investigates ceramic ion conductors focusing on mechano-chemical phenomena in applications such as lithium and sodium metal solid-state batteries and flow cells for grid storage. He is also involved in the UM EV Center and second generation UM Battery Lab.  Professor Sakamoto has 25 years of experience conducting fundamental, applied, and translational research on materials for terrestrial and space energy technologies.  Before joining UM, he was an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University (2007-2014) and a senior engineer at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2000-2007).  At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he helped develop Li ion batteries for the 2003 Mars rovers.  He is the founder and CTO of the University of Michigan solid-state battery Startup Zakuro, Inc. He also received two Major Space Act Awards from the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board, is a Kavli Fellow, is the primary contributor on 18 granted and 21 pending patents, and received the Teacher-Scholar (2013), and Withrow Excellence in Teaching (2009) Awards at Michigan State University.

Dr. Eric D Wachsman, Director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, is the William L. Crentz Centennial Chair in Energy Research and a Distinguished University Professor with appointments in both the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is Past President of The Electrochemical Society (ECS) and Editor-in-Chief of Ionics; a Fellow of both ECS and the American Ceramic Society; elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and member of the World Academy of Ceramics; the recipient of the 2017 Carl Wagner Award from ECS; the 2014 Sir William Grove Award from the International Association for Hydrogen Energy; the 2014 Pfeil Award from The Institute of Materials, Minerals, and Mining; the Outstanding Invention of 2013 award from the University of Maryland Office of Technology Licensing; the 2012 Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition Award; and the 2012 HTM Outstanding Achievement Award from ECS. His research is focused on solid ion-conducting materials and electrocatalysts, and includes the development of solid-state batteries, solid oxide fuel cells, ion-transport membrane reactors, and solid-state gas sensors, using advanced ion conducting materials. He has more than 270 publications and 37 patents/patent applications on ionic and electronic transport in materials, and their catalytic properties, and device performance, and to date four companies have been founded based on these technologies.

Yiying Wu received his B.S. in chemical physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1998, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003 with Prof. Peidong Yang. He then did his postdoctoral research with Prof. Galen D. Stucky at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and joined the chemistry faculty at The Ohio State University in the summer of 2005. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2011 and to full professor in 2014. Since 2017, he has been appointed as the Leet Endowed Chair. He has been serving as an associate editor for ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces since 2013. His group focuses on materials chemistry and interface synthesis for energy conversion and storage. He is the inventor of the one-electron K-O2 battery and pioneered solar batteries that integrate solar harvesting with energy storage. He received Cottrell Scholar Award in 2008, NSF CAREER Award in 2010, CAPA Biomatik Distinguished Faculty Award in 2014, Franklin County Commissioner’s Award in 2014, Midwest Energy News “40 under 40” in 2015, Nano Research Top Paper Award in 2019, and ACS Akron Award in 2019. His invention of K-air battery received DOE Clean Energy Prize in 2014.