Rechargeable Seawater Battery: From Concept to Applications

This talk will present a rechargeable seawater battery and its concept, cell design, working mechanism, and key component materials of the system.  This system uses seawater and novel chemistry for anode and cathode materials.  Na-ions are harvested from the seawater by charging the cell, and the harvested Na-ions are discharged with water (or oxygen dissolved in the seawater) as oxidants to produce electricity.  Seawater provides chemicals both for the anode (Na metal) and cathode in this proposed system that is rechargeable.  The circulating seawater in this open cathode system results in a continuous supply of Na-ions, which offer a superior cycling stability, which allows the application of various alternative anodes to sodium metal by compensating for irreversible charge losses.  The overall electrochemical performance of the seawater battery and its effects on the design and materials will be presented.

About Speaker: Professor Younsik Kim received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Iowa State University (2006, advisor: Prof. Steve W. Martin).  After that, he joined Prof. John B. Goodenough's group at the University of Texas at Austin as a post-doctoral fellow.  He became an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) in August 2010 and at the same time worked as a research scientist at the Richard Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI until July 2013.

He has conducted and supervised research in energy related areas including lithium (Li) and sodium (NA)-ion batteries.  Particularly, he is the original inventor of the novel rechargeable 'sea-water battery' technology, which his group has been actively developing as a promising alternative for grid-scale energy storage.  He has published more than 105 peer reviewed journal articles and 43 patents.  He is also working as CEO of an energy solution company, 4TOONE Corporation.