Xin Xu
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Materials Science
Batteries and other electrochemical devices store energy by shuttling electrons through chemical reactions at an electrode surface, and many of the cheapest, highest-capacity materials are held back by one problem: those reactions are simply too slow. This project asks whether plasma, a hot ionized gas full of energetic electrons and reactive species, can be used while a device is operating to speed those reactions up.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
plasma
electrochemistry
energy storage
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Test how the plasma electron energy distribution function, the spread of energies among free electrons in an ionized gas, affects electrochemical surface reactions on metal-air conversion cathodes.
- Use an operando plasma cell to monitor and control plasma conditions in real time while measuring electrochemical performance, correlating plasma characteristics directly with redox reaction rates.
- Determine whether plasma exposure lowers activation barriers and speeds electron transfer in FeOx-based conversion cathodes, which are low-cost and high-capacity but limited by sluggish kinetics.
- Establish design principles for plasma-assisted electrochemical reactors by linking plasma physics, materials chemistry, and measured reaction pathways.
More about the research
If it works, materials that are attractive on cost and capacity but sluggish in practice could become usable, which matters for storing electricity from intermittent sources like wind and solar.
Why it matters
Cheaper, faster-charging energy storage is a bottleneck for putting more wind and solar power on the grid. By testing whether plasma can accelerate slow reactions in low-cost iron-oxide-based metal-air electrodes, the work could point to ways to raise efficiency and cut costs not just in batteries but also in fuel cells and catalysis, and it would add basic knowledge about how plasmas change chemistry at surfaces.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hongtao Zhong
Michigan State University, MI·Engineering
Investigate how the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) of a plasma shapes electrochemical surface reactions in metal-air conversion cathodes, including iron oxide (FeOx) materials.
Ellen Matson
University of Rochester, NY·Chemistry
Determine how hydrogen atoms are taken up at the surface of polyoxovanadate–alkoxide and –carboxylate clusters, molecular stand-ins for reducible metal oxide nanomaterials, mapping structure–function relationships through self-assembly and post-synthetic modification.
James Penner-Hahn
University of Michigan, MI·Chemistry
Clarify reaction mechanisms in sulfur composite cathodes that use the garnet solid electrolyte LLZO, using model systems, electroanalytical techniques, and in operando and ex-situ X-ray analyses that track chemistry during and after battery operation.
The school
Arizona State University Campus Immersion: 36 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 625 research doctorates a year.
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