[CCoE Notice] Invitation to Professor Donald Sadoway (MIT) Lecture on Energy Storage, Batteries and Metal Extraction

[Grayson, Audrey A]

Advances in Energy Storage, Batteries, and Metal Extraction





Professor Donald Sadoway, John F. Elliot Professor of Material Chemistry,  MIT,  will discuss Innovation in Electrochemical Technology from Batteries to Metals Extraction.  The road to sustainability is paved with electrochemical technology, whether it be a solution to the problem of intermittency in the generation of electricity by renewable sources such as wind or photovoltaic solar or a solution to the problem of the carbon intensity associated with metals production. Examples of applied electrochemistry in action will be illustrated in two different settings:

(1) metals production by molten oxide electrolysis (MOE), which is the electrolytic decomposition of a metal oxide into molten metal and oxygen gas. The range of candidate metals and their alloys spans base metals (Fe, Mn, Ni, Cr), reactive metals (Ti, Zr), and rare earth metals (lanthanons and U);

(2) stationary batteries for storage and delivery of off-peak power with emphasis on colossal current capability, long service lifetime, and very low cost. Such large format batteries are the key enabling technology for carbon-free renewable, but intermittent, electric power generation. At the same time, such batteries installed on the existing grid would reduce price volatility, increase reliability, and cut carbon emissions.



Donald R. Sadoway is the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He obtained the B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science, the M.A.Sc. in Chemical Metallurgy, and the Ph.D. in Chemical Metallurgy, all from the University of Toronto.  After a year of postdoctoral study at MIT as a NATO Fellow, Dr. Sadoway joined the faculty in 1978. The author of over 150 scientific papers and holder of 19 U.S. patents, his research is directed towards the development of rechargeable batteries for grid-level storage and environmentally sound technologies for the extraction of metals. The fundamental tenet that drives his choice of problems is how to reduce cost at the discovery stage. To push these ideas from lab bench to marketplace, he is the founder of two companies, Ambri and Boston Electrometallurgical. With recordings of his chemistry lectures broadcast throughout the world on MIT OpenCourseWare, his impact on engineering education extends far beyond the lecture hall at MIT. Viewed over 1,500,000 times, his TED talk from February 29, 2012 is a narrative about inventing inventors as much as it about inventing technology. In 2012 he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

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