Hosted by the University of South Carolina
August 5-6, 2024
Amaco Hall,301 Main Street, Columbia South Carolina
Workshop Mission
With the wide application of batteries in our current mobile society, the safety issues of batteries have become one of the top concerns. Emerging in-situ/operando characterizations, advanced experimental approaches, and modeling methodologies have been proposed to enhance understanding of the fundamental science of battery safety behaviors and provide powerful design tools for the next-generation safe battery.
We have witnessed significant scientific research breakthroughs and engineering technology development in academia and industries in recent years. In the meantime, due to the complexity of the batteries as energy storage systems, fundamental problems remain unsolved or even unidentified, hindering the further development of the battery-related industry. In this context, the Battery Safety Workshop (BSW) has been focusing on battery safety research topics since 2022. This annual workshop aims to provide an informative and inclusive forum to discuss the state-of-the-art research progress in the battery safety area. Attendees may include scientists, researchers, and engineers in academia and industry to inspire collaborative and synergic efforts toward solving battery safety issues.
Registration
Registration for the workshop can be acquired through the University of South Carolina Marketplace within the College of Engineering and Computing portal found here. Workshop registration is $500 with a discounted student registration of $150 with the presentation of a poster (strongly encouraged but not required).
2024 Battery Safety Workshop Student Registration - $150 - (direct link to student registration). Students are strongly encouraged to present posters during the poster session.
Talks
All talks are invited talks. The 2024 speaker lineup is below with more to come.
Thomas P. Barrera, PhD, is President of LIB-X Consulting where he provides engineering and educational services in the broad area of lithium-ion battery power systems. Previously, Tom was a Technical Fellow for The Boeing Co., Satellite Development Center, where he led multidisciplinary teams in systems engineering of advanced space electrical power subsystem technologies. Tom is a project lead for the NASA Engineering Safety Center and was a principal on the root cause and investigative teams supporting the 2013 Boeing-787 lithium-ion battery incidents. Tom is also the editor of a new technical reference book titled "Spacecraft Lithium-Ion Battery Power Systems" (John Wiley & Sons), has over 50 combined conference presentations and publications, and 3 US patents in the area of aviation battery safety. He earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from UCLA, is a member-at-large for the Battery Division of the ECS, and is an AIAA Associate Fellow.
Wenquan Lu, PhD, is a Principal Chemical Engineer at Argonne National Lab. He boasts over two decades of experience in renewable energy and energy storage technologies, including lithium batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors. His current role at Argonne National Lab focuses on developing lithium-ion battery (LIB) systems for electric vehicles (EVs), covering the spectrum from fundamental understanding to applied research and development (R&D), as well as engineering. Dr. Lu has spearheaded numerous projects, under the patronage of government and industry bodies, aiming to advance LIB technologies for EV use. His collaborative work with multidisciplinary teams has endowed him with a deep comprehension of the LIB system in its entirety, which informs his vision of the present challenges and the future direction of energy storage technology.
Jiang Fan, PhD, is the Co-founder/President of American Lithium Energy Corporation (ALE). Dr. Fan has over 25 years of experience in Li-ion battery design and manufacturing. He received his PhD in Solid State Chemistry from Arizona State University in 1995. Relevant accomplishments include developing zero-volt technologies (ZVT®) and SafeCore® technology that was licensed to Stanley (one of the large power tool companies) and one Fortune 100 electronic consumer company through ALE’s spin-off Amionx. He participated in several international lithium-ion safety standard discussions including the IEEE P1625 standard. He is the current member of the technical panel for UL2591, a UL battery separator standard. He has been awarded 70+ US/international patents plus 14 patents pending; he also published over 40 research papers.
Drew J. Pereira, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Electrochemistry and Battery Materials at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering under Dr. John W. Weidner at the University of South Carolina in 2021. His graduate research on the development of a multi-scale, mechano-electrochemical battery model included applied research experiences at General Motors, Savannah River National Laboratory, and NREL. After graduating, Drew spent two years at Soteria Battery Innovation Group as an R&D Manager focusing on technology development to improve battery performance and safety as well as novel experimental design to evaluate battery cell and pack safety. Drew’s current work, primarily funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Behind-the-Meter Storage (BTMS) Consortium, is focused on research and development of electrode and electrolyte materials for batteries in BTMS applications, which have a particular need for longevity and safety.
Chao Hu, Ph.D., received his B.E. in Engineering Physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, in 2007 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2011. He worked first as a Senior Reliability Engineer and then as a Principal Scientist at Medtronic in Minnesota from 2011 to 2015; he joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Iowa State University in 2015 and worked first as an Assistant Professor and then as an Associate Professor from 2015 to 2022. He is currently a Collins Aerospace Professor in Engineering Innovation and an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Hu’s research interests are engineering design under uncertainty, lifetime prediction of lithium-ion batteries, and prognostics and health management. He serves as a Review Editor of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization and an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Mechanical Design and IEEE Sensors Journal.
Nathan B. Johnson, Ph.D., Is a postdoctoral Scholar at Sandia National Laboratories. He completed his Doctorate in Chemical Engineering under Dr. Paul Albertus at the University of Maryland, College Park in Spring 2023. His dissertation work focused on coupling numerical modeling and materials scale experiments to assess the thermal safety of prospective all-solid-state lithium metal battery chemistries. Since graduating, he has worked as a postdoctoral appointee at Sandia National Labs in the Power Sources R&D organization under Dr. Loraine Torres-Castro and Dr. Alex Bates. At Sandia, his work primarily focuses on the safety, reliability, and diagnostics of a wide variety of primary and rechargeable battery chemistries from the materials scale up to the pack level.
Guang Xu, Ph.D., is the Robert H. Quenon endowed associate professor in the Department of Mining and Explosives Engineering at Missouri S&T. Before joining Missouri S&T in 2019, he worked six years as a faculty member at Curtin University in Australia. He has expertise in addressing atmospheric hazards associated with mining activities, including air quality and fire safety. One of his projects investigates the fire safety for battery electric vehicles and strategies for effective fire suppression. He has research funding with his share of over $2 million from both federal agencies (NIOSH, NSF, EPA) and prominent industry sponsors (BHP, Anglo-American, Caterpillar). He has published over 70 peer-reviewed journal papers with a total number of citations amounting to 2432. His research has been featured prominently, including as the top story in the American Society for Engineering Education e-newsletter and highlighted by the newsletter of the Critical Materials Institute.
Chris Turner, is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chris Turner is responsible for developing and integrating new technology into next-generation products and systems. He has over 20 years of multi-disciplined battery industry experience including battery technology development and strategic development of rechargeable power systems from companies such as Sony Ericsson, AER Energy Resources, and SAFT Aerospace Batteries (formerly Gates Aerospace Batteries). Mr. Turner holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of South Carolina and holds several patents related to battery technology. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Rechargeable Battery Association Board of Directors (PRBA) and NAATBatt International.
Anudeep Mallarapu, Ph.D., is a mechanical engineering researcher within NREL’s electrochemical energy storage group. His work focuses on the Multiphysics modeling of lithium-ion batteries for failure mitigation at high strain rate deformation using comprehensive coupling approaches combining electrochemical, thermal, and mechanical models to predict short-circuit and thermal runaway response. He works with industry partners on research ranging from experimental characterization of battery materials to modeling module-level failure propagation. Prior to joining NREL, he worked on modeling materials under large plastic deformations and automotive crashworthiness.
Jason K. Ostanek, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Engineering Technology at Purdue University. At Purdue University, Dr. Ostanek is director of the Applied Thermofluids Lab which conducts basic and applied research in thermofluid science across a broad range of applications. Dr. Ostanek and his team conduct numerical and experimental research on heat transfer associated with thermal runaway of Li-ion battery cells. He is also director of the Powertrain Technology Lab which is an instructional facility for teaching concepts of combustion engines, electrified powertrain systems, and alternative fuels. Dr. Ostanek has received awards for Outstanding Faculty in Discovery, Outstanding Faculty in Engagement, and Exceptional Teaching and Instructional Support during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Dr. Brian Morin, Ph.D., is co-founder and CEO of the Soteria Battery Innovation Group, a growth company advocating for lithium-ion battery safety. Soteria has formed a consortium of companies and licensees its technology to support this mission, whose initial members include NASA, Mercedes, DuPont, Teijin, Applied Materials, Bosch, Motorola and others, who will work together to set aggressive safety standards and use branding to drive adoption. Soteria has a technology that acts as a fuse inside the battery, preventing ignition in almost all circumstances and making the batteries far more resistant to damage, abuse, and manufacturing defects. Soteria was named the #1 Most Fundable Company by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2018 and the #1 Advanced Material company by the US China Innovation Alliance. Brian was President and co-founder of Dreamweaver International and was founder and CEO of Innegrity LLC, a high-performance fiber company, from 2004 – 2010. Brian served on the Technical Advisory Council of the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (2016-18), on the External Advisory Board for the Clemson University Department of Materials Science and Engineering (2007-12), and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Foundation Board (2010-16). Brian has been Vice President and/or Director of NAATBatt International from 2013 through the present. He has also volunteered as a Guardian ad Litem in Greenville, SC, representing the best interests of foster children in the court process, and is a small group leader for 12th-grade boys at his church.
Safak Dogu, Ph.D., is the Head of Product Development and Research at Pomega, part of Kontrolmatik Technologies. He is a battery technology and electrochemical engineering expert with a background in Product Development and Process Engineering. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering and earned his Ph.D. in LFP nanomaterial cathode synthesis and cell designs for EV fast charging. He has over 20 years of industrial and research tenure in battery-tech companies for automotive and energy storage-oriented businesses. His focus at Pomega USA is stationary electricity storage and grid resilience strategies with battery-powered systems.
Chi-Hao Chang, Ph.D., is an Associate Research Scientist at Dow within Dow Performance Silicones, Product Development. He joined Dow in 2019 and worked on conductive product development and battery fire protection product development for various applications including electrical vehicles and consumer electronics. Currently, he is leading the silicone foam product development for EV battery fire protection applications. He also partners with Dow MobilitySciecne and leads the Battery Material application team to investigate the battery market and progress and work with multiple businesses to determine investment and new technology opportunities. His efforts in product development and scouting help Dow realize its ambition in vehicle electrification. He has commercialized multiple products for thermal management and battery fire protection to improve the performance and safety of EV battery packs. He also uses a variety of tools including Power BI, and R script to build databases and manage different information, competitors’ information, and experimental results. Before joining Dow, he went to The University of Texas at Austin for Ph.D. degree, working on a lithium-ion battery and next-generation lithium battery developments and scaleup. He has published >35 peer-reviewed papers and filed more than 10 patents.
Peng Zhao, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering and Space Institute of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University in 2015. From 2015-2020, he is an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering at Oakland University. His research interests primarily focus on fundamental-based and application-oriented problems in the frontier areas of combustion, propulsion, energy conversion, and safety. His current research activities include battery safety, low-carbon fuels, multiphysical numerical simulation, etc. He has published 70+ peer-reviewed articles in leading combustion and energy journals and 1 book chapter. He is a Bernard Lewis Fellow of the International Combustion Institute, session chair of the International Combustion Symposium, session organizer of SAE World Congress, and executive editor of the journal Progress of Engineering Science.
Yi Wang, Ph.D., is the Staff Vice President of FM Global and the manager of the Fire Dynamics group in the Research Division. At FM Global, he oversees the research activities of battery safety, material flammability, as well as CFD fire modeling. The research team conducts battery cell-, module- and system-level experiments to quantify thermal runaway and fire hazards and develop corresponding numerical models. Dr. Wang serves on the editorial boards of Fire Safety Journal, Fire Technology, Fire and Materials. He is also a committee member and scientific program co-chair of the International Association of Fire Safety Science (IAFSS).
Posters
The Battery Safety Workshop has a poster session and we welcome all workshop attendees to bring their posters and display them. We will give one Best Poster Award (sponsored by “Batteries” (MDPI)) with a certificate and cash reward. Please contact Prof. Golareh Jalilvand at golareh@mailbox.sc.edu.
The Battery Safety Workshop is sponsored by the following with more to come.
Previous Attendees (2022-2023)
Organizing Committee
The 2024 Battery Safety Workshop is organized jointly by the Universities of South Carolina, Delaware, and Connecticut. The Organizing Committee is made up of:
