The quest for cheaper, safer, higher-energy and resource-abundant energy storage has driven battery innovations in the past several decades. Organic battery electrode materials that store charge with dedicated redox groups have emerged as an exciting option.

In this webinar, Yan Yao will discuss the organic battery materials design in emerging rechargeable battery technologies, such as solid-state lithium batteries and multivalent metal batteries. He will also discuss an integrated battery diagnostic platform for structural, chemical and mechanical characterizations that provide insights into failure mechanisms of solid-state batteries.

Dr Yan Yao is Cullen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Houston (UH). He received his PhD in materials science and engineering from UCLA in 2008. After working as a senior scientist at Polyera Corporation and a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University with Prof. Yi Cui, Dr Yao joined the UH faculty in 2012. He was promoted to associate professor in 2017 and full professor in 2020.

Dr Yao has led research on the fundamental study of energy-storage materials and devices, spanning from solid-state batteries for electric vehicles to multivalent ion batteries and aqueous batteries for grid-energy storage. He has authored more than 110 journal articles with 25,000 citations and holds 10 US patents.

Dr Yao is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and senior member of the National Academy of Inventors and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He received the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (2013), UH Teaching Excellence Award (2016), UH Research Excellence Award (2018), Top 1% Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2018), and Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award (2018 and 2020). He founded the ECS University of Houston Student Chapter in 2016 and continues to serve as the faculty advisor.