Symposium EN06-Materials for Energy-Storage Systems in Extreme Environments

The ongoing shift from reliance on traditional fossil fuels to the embrace of renewable and sustainable energy sources critically depends on the development of advanced energy storage technologies. Energy storage systems are sometimes required to operate in extreme environments such as high temperatures, high pressures, the presence of extreme fluxes of energetic particles, and chemically reactive conditions. Applications of these systems include outer space exploration, liquefied gas storage, medical imaging equipment, nuclear reactors, aircraft engines, high-latitude vessels etc. For example, batteries in cell phones may shut down in extremely cold areas or catch fire in harshly hot climates. Such batteries would not be suitable for space exploration on Mercury, where temperatures vary between 430°C (during the day) and –180°C (at night). As another example, the thermal energy produced in concentrating solar-thermal power plants is usually stored using molten salt, which can be highly corrosive to containment materials such as tanks and pipelines. Key to expanding the applicability of energy storage systems from ambient conditions to extreme environments is the development of advanced materials that can retain their structural and functional properties in the latter. This symposium provides a platform for scientists and engineers to present their latest research in addressing materials challenges for energy storage systems in extreme environments.

Topics will include:

Energy storage materials in extreme thermal environments, e.g., elevated temperatures and cryogenic temperatures
Materials subject to high fluxes of energetic particles and photons in energy storage systems
Radiation-resistant materials for nuclear energy storage
Hydrogen embrittlement-resistant materials for hydrogen storage and transport
Materials in energy storage systems that are subject to shock loading or high hydrostatic pressures
Energy storage materials in chemically reactive environments, e.g., in the presence of corrosion, oxidation, or acidic conditions that may lead to accelerated material degradation and failure

Invited Speakers:

Sarbajit Banerjee (Texas A&M University, USA)
Wurigumula Bao (The University of Chicago, USA)
Ben Breitung (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany)
Manish Chhowalla (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)
Jang Wook Choi (Seoul National University, Republic of Korea)
Hongjie Dai (The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Yury Gogotsi (Drexel University, USA)
Russell Hemley (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Maren Lepple (Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany)
Jun Liu (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA)
Kai Liu (Georgetown University, USA)
Nian Liu (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Yifei Mo (University of Maryland, USA)
Bin Ouyang (Florida State University, USA)
Soojin Park (Pohang University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea)
Marshall Schroeder (U.S. Army Research Laboratory, USA)
Esther Takeuchi (Stony Brook University, The State University of New York, USA)
Huolin Xin (University of California, Irvine, USA)
Guiliang Xu (Argonne National Laboratory, USA)
Guihua Yu (The University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Zhiyuan Zeng (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)