Mechanical Engineering Graduate Seminar Series: Dr Xinfang Jin, UMass Lowell, "Multiscale Modeling and Experiment Coupling of Energy Conversion and Storage Devices"

Abstract: The integration of high shares of renewable energy into the grid raises significant technical challenges, such as weather dependence, variability, and uncertainty. Those properties cause frequent and steep net load fluctuations and require great flexibility in the power system. Energy conversion and storage devices can provide services to help support the integration by aligning the balance between supply and demand, supplementing transmission, and providing operating reserves. Short-term storage devices with fast response rates and high power-to-energy ratios could be met by Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Beyond diurnal storage, very high penetrations of renewables could be facilitated by multi-day or even seasonal conversion and storage of hydrogen technologies, such as solid oxide electrolyzers and fuel cells.

Energy conversion and storage devices mostly are porous, composite, micrometer-level multilayer assemblies, the performance of which is closely related to both the individual material and the interactions among them with different defect properties, microstructures, interfaces, and phases. Multiscale modeling tool has been considered as a useful tool to bridge the gap between understandings on different scales and help renovate the devices based upon a wholistic rational which considers the trade-off of multiple factors on different dimensions. Specifically, at atomic level, it could provide insights between the crystal structure of the materials and their physical and electrical properties; at microstructure level, it could demonstrate how different interfaces and phases would interact locally, which could affect the overall homogenized material properties; at continuum level, it is useful in understanding the rate-limiting mechanisms and optimizing the operating conditions for high performance; at system level, it could project the overall efficiency and project the performance when the devices are used for practical applications. This talk introduces the applications of multiscale modeling in the field of energy storage and conversion, to facilitate the discovery of new materials, optimal microstructure, and better devices. The specific topics to be covered include: (1) Basic concept of energy conversion and storage; (2) Theoretical framework of model and experiment coupling; (3) Case study 1: Impedance spectroscopy analysis of LIB for battery diagnosis application; (3) Case study 2: Across scales simulation of solid oxide electrolyzers. (4) Case study 3: Microstructure simulation of multi-phase CO2 capture meembrane; (5) Modeling in other scales/applications will also be briefly presented.

Bio: Dr. Xinfang Jin joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2018. She earned her doctorate from the University of South Carolina in Mechanical Engineering, where she also had served as a postdoctoral associate from 2014-2017 and then a research assistant professor from 2017-2018. Her research is focused on multiscale computational modeling and simulation of energy conversion and storage devices, such as fuel cells, electrolysis cells and Lithium-Ion Batteries. She has received funding from NSF CBET, DOE EERE, Office of Naval Research, and industrial partners. She has published over 60 journal papers with over 780 citations and a h-index of 15. She has served as session chairs and co-organizers of electrochemical society conference.