Battery Development Center & Surface Science Principles

Conducts range of activities from material research to system testing.
- Materials Research: Focus on discovering new materials to enhance battery performance (e.g., longevity, charging speed, safety).
- Safety Testing: Performing high-risk tests, including failure analysis by simulating extreme conditions (e.g., overheating, puncturing batteries).
Semi-automated equipment simulates aspects of battery manufacturing.
Collaborates with industry partners and startup companies to prove new technologies.
Recent expansion in lab space: From existing facility to include an additional 2,000 square feet.

Testing performed on larger batteries (e.g., commercial batteries) under various conditions (charge, discharge, temperature, humidity).
Assessment of efficiency and performance of bigger battery packs.
Equipment allows for testing at both materials level and systems level, including cell structure types (e.g., cylindrical, pouch).

Electrode Injection: Starting with powders to make battery "paint" which is applied to coils.
Battery formats include cylindrical cells (e.g., found in power tools) and flat pouch cells (e.g., in mobile devices).
Tesla vehicles contain around 7,000 cells.

Main Battery Development Center on campus: Includes mixing rooms and cell creation areas for pouch and cylindrical cells.
- Collaboration with over 200 companies.
Test lab in Kodak Park further specializes in performance testing of battery chemistries with third-party certification assistance.

Conducts tests such as driving nails through cells or overheating them to analyze responses.
Uses inert gas environments to perform safe failure tests and to collect gases released during failures using FTIR or GC techniques.
Provides certification and performance reports for specific battery applications (like EVs and grid storage).

Course focuses on the principles of bulk/mass/energy balances and their connection to interface science and surface tension.
Initial experiments introduced to basic concepts of surface tension using hands-on demonstrations (e.g., floating a penny).

Surface: Boundary between two regions of the same material.
Interface: Boundary between different phases or different materials.
Dispersion: System where one phase is dispersed within another.
- Types include suspensions (a solid in a liquid) and emulsions (two liquids).
Adsorption vs. Absorption:
- Adsorption refers to molecules sticking to a surface; whereas absorption involves molecules being taken into the bulk.

Defined by dispersion size: particles between 1 nm and 1 micron.
At this scale, properties differ significantly due to intermolecular forces like Van der Waals.

Cohesion: Same substance molecules sticking to each other (important for coating uniformity).
Adhesion: Ability of one substance to stick to another (important for coatings not peeling).

Phenomenon where surface tension interacts with geometry, as seen in narrow tubes.
Controlled by balance of surface tension and gravity.
Pressure relationships derived from internal and external forces.

Caused by imbalances in intermolecular forces at the air-liquid interface.
Balances are maintained in bulk liquid, but not at surfaces, creating tension.
Surface tension is calculated by: $\text{Surface Tension} = \frac{\text{Force}}{2 \times \text{Length}}$

Varies with temperature changes alongside different interactions (critical in processes like coatings).

Surfactants: Molecules with both polar and nonpolar characteristics that reduce surface tension.
- Typical structure includes a hydrophilic (polar) head and hydrophobic (nonpolar) tail.
- Functions to stabilize emulsions and separate unlike materials.

Point at which surfactants saturate a surface; after this, they aggregate into micelles, enhancing ability to disperse nonpolar materials in polar solvents.

In drug delivery, enhancing emulsions, and in surfactant therapy for lung conditions.
Utility in various fields, including environmental technologies and materials science.

Exploring the behavior of single-wall carbon nanotubes, their unique properties differing based on structural attributes (e.g., twisting of atoms affecting electronic properties).