See Through Batteries | Neil Dasgupta

See Through Batteries | Neil Dasgupta | MichEpedia – Watching what happens inside of next-generation batteries, causing fires.

YouTube caption: In order to better understand efficiency-reducing dendrites, the metal wire forming phenomenon that consumes electrolytes while new generation lithium metal batteries are charging, researchers have developed a visualization cell as a “window” to look inside the potentially explosive process.
The research is described in the paper, “Dendrites and Pits: Untangling the Complex Behavior of Lithium Metal Anodes through Operando Video Microscopy”, published in ACS Central Science, available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/a….
For the first time, high resolution video is able to capture surface activity as the lithium metal battery cycles through while comparisons to the chemical changes can be made in real time. This may lead to the expansion of longer lasting, more powerful batteries for electric automobiles and longer power storage from our nation’s energy infrastructure.

Neil Dasgupta is an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering (http://me.engin.umich.edu/) at the University of Michigan and performs research at the intersection of nanotechnology, energy science, and manufacturing. His research goals is to develop scalable, low-cost techniques for the synthesis and assembly of nanostructures to address complex energy-related environmental challenges. Example applications include solar photovoltaics, artificial photosynthesis, catalysts, and batteries. His research is highly interdisciplinary, drawing from influences in mechanical engineering, materials science, electrical engineering, physics and chemistry (http://dasgupta.engin.umich.edu/).
His Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering is from Stanford University, 2011

Kevin Wood is a Postdoctoral Fellow with a research focus on Batteries, Fuel Cells and Electrochemistry. He received his PhD in Materials Science at the Colorado School of Mines (2014)