Publications

Abstract not provided.

We, the Postdoc Professional Development Program (PD2P) leadership team, wrote these postdoc guidelines to be a starting point for communication between new postdocs, their staff mentors, and their managers. These guidelines detail expectations and responsibilities of the three parties, as well as list relevant contacts. The purpose of the Postdoc Program is to bring in talented, creative people who enrich Sandia's environment by performing innovative R&D, as well as by stimulating intellectual curiosity and learning. Postdocs are temporary employees who come to Sandia for career development and advancement reasons. In general, the postdoc term is 1 year, renewable up to five times for a total of six years. However, center practices may vary; check with your manager. At term, a postdoc may apply for a staff position at Sandia or choose to move to university, industry or another lab. It is our vision that those who leave become long-term collaborators and advocates whose relationships with Sandia have a positive effect upon our national constituency.

In this paper the performance results of the RedFlow zinc-bromide module (ZBM) Gen 2.0 are reported for Phase 1 of testing, which includes initial characterization of the module. This included physical measurement, efficiency as a function of charge and discharge rates, efficiency as a function of maximum charge capacity, duration of maximum power supplied, and limited cycling with skipped strip cycles. The goal of this first phase of testing was to verify manufacturer specifications of the zinc-bromide flow battery. Initial characterization tests have shown that the ZBM meets the manufacturer's specifications. Further testing, including testing as a function of temperature and life cycle testing, will be carried out during Phase 2 of the testing, and these results will be issued in the final report, after Phase 2 testing has concluded.

Abstract not provided.

This report describes the status of research being performed under CRADA No. SC10/01771.00 (Lead/Carbon Functionality in VRLA Batteries) between Sandia National Laboratories and East Penn Manufacturing, conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Storage Systems Program. The Quarter 4 Milestone was completed on time. The milestone entails the initiation of high rate, partial state of charge (HRPSoC) cycling of the carbon enhanced batteries. The morphology, porosity, and porosity distribution within the plates after 1k and 10k cycles were documented, illustrating the changes which take place in the early life of the carbon containing batteries, and as the battery approaches failure due to hard sulfation for the control battery. Longer term cycling on a subset of the received East Penn cells containing different carbons (and a control) continues, and will progress into FY12. Carbon has been explored as an addition to lead-acid battery electrodes in a number of ways. Perhaps the most notable to date has been the hybrid 'Ultrabattery' developed by CSIRO where an asymmetric carbon-based electrochemical capacitor is combined with a lead-acid battery into a single cell, dramatically improving high-rate partial-state-of-charge (HRPSoC) operation. As illustrated below, the 'Ultrabattery' is a hybrid device constructed using a traditional lead-acid battery positive plate (i.e., PbO2) and a negative electrode consisting of a carbon electrode in parallel with a lead-acid negative plate. This device exhibits a dramatically improved cycle life over traditional VRLA batteries, as well as increased charge power and charge acceptance. The 'Ultrabattery' has been produced successfully by both The Furukawa Battery Co. and East Penn Manufacturing. An example illustrating the dramatic improvement in cycle life of the Ultrabattery over a conventional VRLA battery is shown in a graph. In addition to the aforementioned hybrid device, carbon has also been added directly to traditional VRLA batteries as an admixture in both the positive and negative plates, the latter of which has been found to result in similar improvements to battery performance under high-rate partial-state-of-charge (HRPSoC) operation. It is this latter construction, where carbon is added directly to the negative active material (NAM) that is the specific incarnation being evaluated through this program. Thus, the carbon-modified (or Pb-C) battery (termed the 'Advanced' VRLA battery by East Penn Manufacturing) is a traditional VRLA battery where an additional component has been added to the negative electrode during production of the negative plate. The addition of select carbon materials to the NAM of VRLA batteries has been demonstrated to increase cycle life by an order of magnitude or more under (HRPSoC) operation. Additionally, battery capacity increases on cycling and, in fact, exceeds the performance of the batteries when new.

Abstract not provided.

Abstract not provided.

This report describes the status of research being performed under CRADA No. SC10/01771.00 (Lead/Carbon Functionality in VRLA Batteries) between Sandia National Laboratories and East Penn Manufacturing, conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Storage Systems Program. The Quarter 3 Milestone was completed on time. The milestone entails an ex situ analysis of a control as well as three carbon-containing negative plates in the raw, as cast form as well as after formation. The morphology, porosity, and porosity distribution within each plate was evaluated. In addition, baseline electrochemical measurements were performed on each battery to establish their initial performance. These measurements included capacity, internal resistance, and float current. The results obtained for the electrochemical testing were in agreement with previous evaluations performed at East Penn manufacturing. Cycling on a subset of the received East Penn cells containing different carbons (and a control) has been initiated.

Abstract not provided.

Hybrid cells based on ZnO/P3HT heterojunctions have the advantage of better device stability, but suffer poor photovoltaic performance compared to all-organic cells which use PCBM as the electron acceptor. The photovoltaic effect in these hybrid systems is accomplished via photoinduced charge separation at the interface between the absorbing polymer (P3HT) and the electron acceptor (ZnO). Efforts to improve device performance in these hybrid systems have centered on reducing the required diffusion length for P3HT excitons by creating bulk heterojunctions from either ZnO nanoparticles and P3HT or using ZnO precursors which convert in situ to form ZnO networks inside a polymer matrix. In this study, we use transient photoinduced absorption to access the lifetimes of P3HT polarons and excitons in bulk heterojunctions constructed using P3HT and ZnO nanoparticles or ZnO precursors and compare to those in planar ZnO/P3HT devices. Steady-state photoinduced absorption spectra of ZnO/P3HT show characteristic of sub-bandgap transitions associated with the formation of long-lived (msec lifetimes) radical cations (polarons) in P3HT. Similar short-lived polarons (psec lifetimes) are observed by picosecond transient photoinduced absorption in addition to infrared absorption due to excitons. Here we examine the lifetimes of both the excitons and polarons in ZnO:P3HT bulk heterojunctions using both picosecond and millisecond techniques in an effort to understand the effect of the structure and morphology of the electron acceptor on charge separation. We will also compare the relative photoexitation lifetimes, hence charge separation efficiency, for the planar and bulk heterojunction hybrid system to an all-organic P3HT:PCBM system.