MAE Department - PG Seminar - Advanced technologies and materials for the thermal management of lithium ion batteries
High energy density battery, such as lithium ion battery, is an key component in our sustainable energy future. Despite its rapidly accelerating adoption in electric vehicles and terrestrial energy storage, its safety issues and thermal management remains a technical challenge. In this talk, several related past works by the speaker will be presented, including both new material development and system-level innovations. Specifically, (1) highly thermally insulating and lightweight aerogels are developed for mitigation of thermal runaway spreading; (2) high-efficiency cold plates are designed using topology optimization to increase temperature uniformity of battery packs; (3) a novel passive thermal regulator is developed to fulfil the conflicting thermal management needs in hot and cold environments. Future research opportunities in this field will also be discussed.
Dr. Menglong Hao received his bachelor degree in thermal energy and power engineering from Southeast University in Nanjing, China, his master degree in Energy science and technology from Ulm University, Germany, and his PhD degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University in the US. He worked as a postdoc at UC Berkeley from 2016-2019, after which he has been serving as a professor back at Southeast University. His research interests are mainly focused on thermal management of energy, electronic and vehicle systems, especially at the multidisciplinary intersection of heat, materials and manufacturing. His research work on battery thermal management have been published on prestigious journals including Science and Nature Energy.