Center

Research Challenge Grant of the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission Division of Science for the Center for Electrochemical Energy Systems

A Research Challenge Grant awarded in July 2012 from the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission Division of Science allowed a group of accomplished WVU professors to work collaboratively on developing NaSICON-glass composite materials for large scale electricity storage. The award also helped to establish the Center for Electrochemical Energy Systems, now known as the Electrochemical Systems Research Center. To date, the WV HEPC funding has led to the following accomplishments:

• demonstrated that a selected glass in the NaSICON composite was able to withstand the corrosive forces of liquid sodium
• developed a method for doping NaSICON with larger amounts of yttrium and with indium to improve conduction
• identified an optimal configuration for the glass composite material that produced ~0.2 S/cm diffusive conductivity and ~0.06 S/cm overall conductivity, which shows more than a 300% increase over basic NaSICON which over a three-month longevity test was found to be stable in a molten sodium/sulfur environment
• developed novel ionic liquid systems with cation-coordinating side chains to improve the binding nature of the ionic liquid with sodium and lithium cations
• developed sodium-ion cathodes having high cycling stability and rate capability with greater flexibility without the use of binders for which a patent has been filed
• continued development adapting our existing fuel cell continuum model to robustly model a NaSICON battery focusing on a lumped computational model for sodium sulfur battery analysis, lump model integration with MATLAB Simulink, and thermal management with lumped model for which the results have compared favorably with experimental data
• developed a method for analyzing NaSICON powders using SEM, TEM, and XRD

Members of the group have been active in the materials field. Through their collaboration, the group has fostered continued interest in a number of related electrochemical studies. These interests have contributed to the additional awards for the group’s members as listed below.

Additional Awards 

1,2,3-Triazoles as Crucial Ligands in Metal Catalysis, Xiaodong “Mike” Shi, PI, US NSF-Mathematical & Physical Sciences, $375,000

Anode Intergranular Phase Growth Analysis, Xueyan Song, PI, URS Corporation, $83,610

Cathode Intergranular Phase Growth Analysis, Xueyan Song, PI, URS Corporation, $83,610

Development of Self-Powered Wireless-Ready High Temperature Electrochemical Sensors for In-Situ Corrosion Monitoring for Boiler Tubes in Next Generation Coal-Based Power Systems, Xingbo Liu, PI, US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, $1,994

Dynamic 3D Multi-Physics Cathode/Anode Model, Ismail Celik, PI, URS Corporation, $166,258

Evaluation of Electrolyte Degradation, Xueyan Song, PI, URS Corporation, $37,313

WV Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage, Xingbo Liu, PI, WV Higher Education Policy Commission, $1,885,722–ESRC’s foundational award

Intermediate-temperature Electrogenerative Cells for Flexible Co-generation of Power and Liquid Fuel, MSRI, prime contractor, Xingbo Liu, subcontractor, US DOE ARPA-E, $549,999

Novel Nanostructure Tailored Electrode of SOFCs, Xueyan Song, PI, US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, $1,301,314

Oxygen Reduction Reaction Model in a  Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Cathode,  Xingbo Liu, PI, URS Corporation, $140,099

Scalable and Cost Effective Barrier Layer Coating to Improve Stability and Performance of SOFC Cathode, Xingbo Liu, PI, US DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, $800,000

Solid Composite Electrolyte to Improve Safety of Li-ion Batteries for Grid Energy Storage, Xingbo Liu, PI, US DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, $99,990

TEM Analysis of Industrial SOFC Samples, Xueyan Song, PI, URS Corporation,  $9,800