AER/I Chemistry Seminar,10/27/2023, 3pm, Fulmer 201

About the event

Title: Improving Energy Storage Polymers Using Permanent Magnets

Speaker: William McLeod

Group: Professor Jeff Bell

Abstract: As intermittent power sources like wind and solar enter the grid and portable electronics rise in ubiquity, electrochemical energy storage devices must improve to keep up with demand. One promising emerging technology is redox-based pseudocapacitance, which uses fast surface redox processes for rapid charging and discharging. Redox-active, conductive polymers, like polyaniline (PANI) are often used for this application for the ease with which they can be deposited on surfaces electrochemically. While the surface redox processes that occur in these polymers store more energy than traditional double-layer capacitance, their energy density remains low compared to even the most energy-poor batteries. While many techniques have been shown to improve the energy storage capability of redox-active polymers, these techniques employ complicated and many-step syntheses, expensive and environmentally malignant additives, or increased power consumption during synthesis. This talk will outline how the electrosynthesis of polyaniline may be affected by a permanent magnet in order to yield a product with both improved capacitance and cyclability without the need for any additional chemicals, energy, or synthesis steps.