内容简介：

The supply of sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technological challenge in the 21st century. To meet this challenge, enormous efforts have been undertaken to develop new energy storage platforms such as rechargeable batteries that are not only of high-energy and high-power, but also chemo-mechanically reliable. However, high-energy-density electrodes (such as Si) for lithium ion batteries suffer from rapid, irreversible capacity decay and poor cyclability, due to lithium insertion/extraction induced fracture of the active materials and unstable growth of the solid-electrolyte interphase. In this talk I will present our recent progresses in understanding how electrochemistry and mechanics are intimately coupled in defining the degradation of the LIBs, how nanostructuring, nanoporosity, and surface coating can mitigate the battery degradation, and how the strong mechanics-electrochemistry coupling effect can be exploited to realize mechanical energy harvesting. Finally, I will briefly mention our recent works on the roles of mechanics in biology and 2D layered crystals.

报告人简介：

Dr. Sulin Zhang received his BS from Dalian University of Technology in 1994 with the highest distinction, MS from Tsinghua University in 1997, and PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2002, all from Engineering Mechanics. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Northwestern University. He is currently a Professor in Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics and Department of Biomedical Engineering at Penn State University. Dr. Zhang’s research has been focused on the roles of mechanical forces and stresses in materials, biology, and chemistry. He is the recipient of the Early Career Development Award from National Science Foundation in 2007, the PSEAS Outstanding Research Award in 2016 from Penn State. Dr. Zhang is severing as an Associated Editor for the journal of Extreme Mechanics Letters, and an editorial board member for Nature Partner Journal-Computational Materials.
 
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