Confining water environment in liquids for electrochemical energy storage

Dr. Alexis Grimaud
Solid-State Chemistry and Energy Laboratory, Collège de France

Friday, July 24, 3-4pm EDT, via Zoom

While the quest for new bulk electro-active materials has led to rapid development of energy storage and conversion devices such as Li-ion batteries, fuel cells, and electrolyzers, their realization in practical devices relies on mastering properties at the electrode-electrolyte interface. Nevertheless, when studying such interfaces, two difficulties arise. First, controlling the surface chemistry and electronic properties of solids is challenging. Second, understanding the double layer structure at electrochemical interfaces often proves complex using conventional laboratory techniques. Toward that goal, our group is developing chemical strategies to constrain the solvation structure of water such that its reactivity can better be studied at electrochemical interfaces. Thus, using non-reactive chemical matrices, ion/ion, ion/water and water/water interactions can be selectively controlled. Doing so, different populations of water molecules can be sorted out, and their reactivity at metallic or transition metal oxides surfaces then investigated. Furthermore, tuning the solvation structure of water allows for the formation of liquid-liquid stable interfaces, for which ion transfer properties across such interface can be used for liquid-liquid extraction and recycling purposes.

Biography: Dr. Alexis Grimaud is a CNRS Associate Researcher in the Solid-State Chemistry and Energy Laboratory at Collège de France, Paris. After graduating from the Institute of Condensed Matter of Bordeaux (ICMCB) where he obtained his PhD in 2011, he then worked as a postdoctoral associate at MIT under the guidance of Prof. Yang Shao-Horn. Since 2014, Dr. Grimaud is focusing on studying ion- and electron transfer at electrochemical interfaces for advanced water splitting catalysts and new battery chemistries.

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