Yury Gogotsi

Department of Materials Science and Engineering and A.J. Drexel Nanotechnology Institute

Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104

 Gogotsi@drexel.edu, http://nano.materials.drexel.edu

Date: Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Time:  2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

Place: Auditorium, between buildings 2 & 3.

Abstract

This lecture will provide an overview of research activities in the area of nanostructured carbon and carbide materials used for capacitive storage of electrical energy. Electrochemical capacitors or “supercapacitors” are devices that store electrical energy electrostatically and are used in applications where batteries cannot provide sufficient power or charge/discharge rates, or when a long service life (up to 1 million of cycles) is needed. Until now, their higher cost, compared to batteries, has been limiting the use of supercapacitors in household, automotive and other cost-sensitive applications.  We describe the material aspects of supercapacitor development, address unresolved issues and outline future research directions.

High surface area carbon materials are widely used as supercapacitor electrodes. Graphene, nanotubes, activated carbons, template carbons, carbon onions and carbon black are among many materials being used in supercapacitors. Extraction of metals from carbides can generate a broad range of potentially important carbon nanostructures, which range from porous carbon networks to onions and nanotubes. They are known as Carbide-Derived Carbons (CDC).  The CDC structure depends on the crystal structure of the carbide precursor as well as process parameters including temperature, time and environment. Extraction of silicon, boron, aluminum, zirconium or titanium from their respective carbides by chlorine at 200-1200°C results in the formation of micro- and mesoporous carbons with the specific surface area up to 3000 m²/g.  CDC technology allows the control of carbon growth on the atomic level, monolayer by monolayer, with a high accuracy.  It will be shown that the pore size to ion size ratio determines the efficiency of electrochemical energy storage systems. Design of supercapacitor electrodes using nanoporous carbons (3-D), graphene (2-D), carbon nanotubes (1-D) and carbon onions (0-D) for will be addressed.  Also, new 2-D materials known as MXenes (Ti₃C₂, Ti₂C and other) will be described.

Biography

Dr. Yury Gogotsi is Distinguished University Professor and Trustee Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University. He also holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics at Drexel University, and serves as Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanotechnology Institute. He served as Associate Dean of the College of Engineering from 2003 to 2007.  He received his MS (1984) and PhD (1986) degrees from Kiev Polytechnic and a DSc degree from the Ukrainian Academy of Science in 1995. He has co-authored 2 books, edited 12 books, obtained more than 40 patents and authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, including more than 10 papers in Scienceand Nature family journals. His research has been recognized with Chang Jiang Scholar Award, European Carbon Association Award, S. Somiya Award from the International Union of Materials Research Societies, G.C. Kuczynski Prize from the International Institute for the Science of Sintering, R. Snow Award from the American Ceramic Society (4 times), NANOSMAT Prize, I.N. Frantsevich Prize from the Ukrainian Academy of Science, R&D 100 Award from R&D Magazine (twice) and two Nano 50^TM Awards from NASA Nanotech Briefs. He has been elected a Fellow of the AAAS, Materials Research Society, American Ceramic Society, The Electrochemical Society, as well as Academician of the World Academy of Ceramics and Full Member of the International Institute for the Science of Sintering.