Haile - Solid State Electrochemistry

Materials Science / Energy Science and Technology 143

Solid State Electrochemistry for Energy Storage and Conversion

Spring Quarter 2009

Instructor: Prof. Sossina M. Haile
    307 Steele Laboratories, x2958, smhaile@caltech.edu

Organizational Meeting : Monday, March 30, 9-10am, 214 Steele

Class Meetings: MWF 9-10am, location: TBD [214 Steele or NMC]

Teaching Assistant:
    Mary Louie, 328 Steele, x2309, mlouie@caltech.edu

TA Office Hours:
    TBD

Text: None required

Recommended:

CRC Handbook of Solid State Electrochemistry, Editors: P.J. Gellings and H.J.M Bouwmeester, 1997, CRC Press, ISBN 0-8493-8956-9.

The Physical Chemistry of Ionic Materials: Ions and Electrons in Solids, Joachim Maier, 2004, Wiley, ISBN 0-470-87076-1.

Reserved Texts: (will be in SFL)

The two recommended textbooks, plus

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy , Mark E. Orazem and Bernard Tribollet, 2008, Wiley, ISBN 978-0470041406.

Course Structure:

Midterm Exam: 30% (April 29 - May 5)
Final Exam: 35% (Jun 3 - Jun 3)
Written Report: 35% (May 29)

Grading:

Students may take this course either Pass/Fail or for a letter grade. See the second page of the course syllabus for further preliminary information on the exam policies and the requirements for the written report. Additional information will be provided as the exam and report due dates approach.

Content Delivery

In light of the overwhelming student response on favor of recorded lectures, this course will be held in the New Media Classroom (NMC) and the lectures recorded to enable you to view them at your leisure.

To minimize the temptation of trying to absorb all of the course content in the last days of the term, you are required to either attend or view all but four lectures within the week they are delivered. Specifically, you are required to send an email message confirming that you watched the recording or attended lectures for the week by Sunday evening. For every lecture beyond four that you miss, your course grade will be penalized by 1/6 of a letter grade (e.g. one excess missed lecture may move you from a B+ to a B, two would definitely move you from a B+ to a B).

Lecture Handouts/Presentations

All recorded lectures are available here. Both windows and mac based computers can be used for viewing. Adobe pdf versions of the electronically recorded notes are available here. Selected powerpoint supplements to lectures and handouts are posted below.

03/30/09 -- course syllabus;energy overview
04/01/09 -- physical chemistry review
04/03/09 --
04/06/09 -- Student/Faculty conference - lecture will be held as normal. However, you are encouraged to miss the live lecture and participate in the conference instead!
05/22/09 --

Schedule Changes (last updated 04/13/09):

04/15/09 -- No lecture - make up TBD
05/11/09 -- Begin at 8:30am
05/13/09 -- Begin at 8:30am
05/15/09 -- Begin at 8:30am
05/18/09 -- Begin at 8:30am
05/20/09 -- Begin at 8:30am
05/22/09 -- Begin at 8:30am - last day of lecture
05/25/09 -- No lecture
05/27/09 -- No lecture
05/29/09 -- No lecture
12/08/08 -- Possible optional review lecture, details TBD

Course Content:

Introduction to Electrochemical Energy Technologies

The Global Energy Landscape
Overview: Fuel Cells, Batteries, Sensors, Permeation Membranes

Solid State and Physical Chemistry Review

Crystalline Structure, Microstructure, Amorphous Structure
Gibbs Free Energy and Binary Phase Diagrams

Bulk Defect Chemistry

Point Defects, Kroeger-Vink Notation, Brouwer Diagrams

Internal Interfaces

Grain Boundaries; Secondary Phases

From Defects to Conductivity

Purely Ionic Conductors; Mixed Ionic / Electronic Conductors
Atomistics of charge transport (focusing on ionic transport)
Conductivity in Polymers

Electrodes

Electrochemical Equilibrium
Electrochemical Reactions

Measurement Techniques

Bulk Conductivities - electronic and ionic; grain boundaries.
-- as determined by: A.C. impedance spectroscopy; D.C. methods with blocking electrodes
Electrode Kinetics
-- A.C. and D.C. methods

Course Administration (subject to change with due notice):

Grading Policy (2nd page of course syllabus)

Optional problem sets may be posted

Midterm Exam - this will not be posted; only the instructions and some information will be available here; hard copy of exams will be available outside Steele 307 as of 9 am, Tuesday, April 28. Due: May 5.

Final Exam - this will not be posted; only the instructions and some information will be available here; hard copy of exams will be available outside Steele 307 as of 9 am, Tuesday, June 2. Due: Jun 5.

Written Report

April 10: Select Topic

April 17: Read and summarize 2-3 review articles (submit < 3 pages)

April 24: Identify and read primary references; submit list and theme (thesis) for written report

May 8: Prepare report outline

May 18: First draft due

May 29: Final draft due

Each step along the way will be graded to determine a final grade for the report, so don't put this off until the end! We will attempt to provide written feedback within three days for each due date so that you can use the information as you prepare for the next submission.

Course Evaluation Form - online form

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