CBE Seminar: Recent Advances towards Sustainable Energy Storage Solutions

Abstract: Expanding the deployment of renewable energy based electricity generation requires large-scale energy storage systems that are affordable, durable and safe. The battery industry is currently seeking cost-effective alternatives to common battery materials such as lead, zinc, lithium, vanadium, chromium, etc.  Aqueous redox flow batteries (RFBs) have the inherent properties to meet the demanding requirements of large-scale energy storage. In this context, redox materials based on water-soluble small organic molecules have shown significant promise. While much progress has occurred in understanding the behavior of these redox materials, the focus of next-generation systems must be primarily on lowering redox material cost and increasing durability. The presentation will track the journey of development of aqueous organic flow batteries, highlight the technical challenges and outline emerging directions for the future.   

Bio: Narayan received his Ph.D. in electrochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and a master's in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (Chennai). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Exeter, UK, and also was awarded the Resident Research Associateship of the National Research Council to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During his 20 years at JPL, he led the fuel cell research activities for more than 15 years, and also headed the Electrochemical Technologies Group for 7 years. Narayan has worked successfully with various government and private funding agencies to make advances in both fundamental and applied aspects of electrochemical power sources. While at JPL, he  and his associates pioneered the development of direct methanol fuel cell power sources for military and commercial applications, developed new approaches to catalyst preparation by the sputter-deposition technique, new membranes and stacks, and demonstrated a range of hybrid power source systems for space and defense applications. Narayan received NASA-JPL's Exceptional Achievement Award for developing direct methanol fuel cells and transferring the technology to industry. He has over 35 journal publications and 40 U.S. patents on various aspects of electrochemical technology. He has delivered invited talks on numerous occasions and has organized several conferences under the auspices of the Electrochemical Society. From 2009-2011 he was the chairman of the Energy Technology Division of the Electrochemical Society of USA. He has active collaborations with NASA, DoE's National Laboratories and Industry. Narayan joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry, Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute in May 2010 to advance electrochemical power sources research.

Host: Plamen Atanassov