Energy Storage & Conversion

Research aims to enhance energy density, reduce costs, and improve scalability, enabling reliable, low-carbon energy solutions for transportation, grids, and industry.

Battery safety

Battery safety is crucial for ensuring the reliable performance of energy storage systems in applications such as electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and renewable energy integration. Safety risks, including thermal runaway, short circuits, and mechanical dam-age, can lead to catastrophic failures like fires or explosions. Addressing these risks in-volves the development of advanced materials, such as thermally stable electrolytes and solid-state designs, and the implementation of enhanced safety mechanisms, including Battery Management Systems (BMS) for real-time monitoring. Effective thermal manage-ment and robust packaging designs are also integral to mitigating safety hazards and pro-longing battery lifespan.

Modeling plays a pivotal role in understanding and improving battery safety. Computa-tional models simulate thermal, electrochemical, and mechanical behaviors under nor-mal and extreme conditions, providing insights into failure mechanisms and safety thresholds. Multiphysics modeling, incorporating heat transfer, stress analysis, and chemical kinetics, supports the optimization of materials and designs. These models en-able predictive diagnostics, guiding safer battery designs and operational protocols.

Electrolysers

Fuel Cell (FC) and Electrolyzer Cell (EC) science and technology cut across multiple dis-ciplines, including materials science, chemistry, electrochemistry, interfacial science, mechanical engineering and catalysis. The FC is not a new invention, because its princi-ple dates back to 1838. The question is not if FCs and ECs will play an important role in the future sustainable (carbon free) and energy efficient energy system, rather the ques-tion is when. To reach commercialization the cell/system production cost (comparative to other technologies) must be decreased and the lifetime increased.

Fuel cells

Our research in the field of fuel cells concerns analysis of heat and mass transfer, two-phase flow and other transport phenomena in polymer electrolyte fuel cells and electro-lyzers. Numerical calculation methods have been used to predict transport processes in flow channels in FCs and ECs; the electrochemical reactions and their effects on energy and mass balances, while including two-phase flow. The current research interests are focused on comprehensive understanding of the two-phase flow phenomena (AdTherM's website) as well as system scale integration of solar Photo Voltaics (PV) with hydrogen production in electrolyzers (Circular Fuels's website).