Publications

Solvent-driven separations may enable scalable concentration of hypersaline brines, supporting a circular resource economy from the extraction of lithium and rare earth elements from spent battery and magnet leachates. This work analyses a novel solvent-driven water extraction (SDWE) system employing dimethyl ether (DME) and ultra-low-grade heat for brine concentration and fractional crystallization. SDWE exploits DME’s… Read more

Metal‐phenolic networks (MPNs) are a promising platform for developing new heterogeneous catalytic materials for water splitting technologies. This study systematically investigates the relationship between MPN composition and catalytic properties via electropolymerization of copper and cobalt combined with lignin, tannic acid, epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), and gallic acid polyphenols. We find that the choice of metal, size of… Read more

Despite concerted efforts, several plans and policies of the government addressing rural electrification remained unrealized since India’s independence. Although India attained near‐complete grid connectivity in 2018, the problem of inconsistent, unreliable and unaffordable electricity persists, expressly in remote and rural areas. This paper conceptualizes issues of rural electrification in India as a ‘Wicked Problem’ –… Read more

As the building stock is projected to double before the end of the half-century and the power grid is transitions to low-carbon resources, planning new construction hand in hand with the grid and its capacity is essential. This paper presents a method that combines urban building energy modeling and local planning of renewable energy sources… Read more

Abstract Characterizing the rheological properties of faults and the evolution of fault friction during seismic slip are fundamental problems in geology and seismology. Recent increases in the frequency of induced earthquakes have intensified the need for robust methods to estimate fault properties. Here we present a novel approach for estimation of aquifer and fault properties,… Read more

Highly disordered amorphous Li7La3Zr2O12 (aLLZO) is a promising class of electrolyte separators and protective layers for hybrid or all-solid-state batteries due to its grain-boundary-free nature and wide electrochemical stability window. Unlike low-entropy ionic glasses such as LixPOyNz (LiPON), these medium-entropy non-Zachariasen aLLZO phases offer a higher number of stable structure arrangements over a wide range… Read more

The transition to a deeply decarbonized energy system requires coordinated planning of infrastructure investments and operations serving multiple end-uses while considering technology and policy-enabled interactions across sectors. Electricity and natural gas (NG), which are vital vectors of today’s energy system, are likely to be coupled in different ways in the future, resulting from increasing electrification,… Read more

Spray synthesis methods are highly attractive for manufacturing materials for energy storage and conversion owing to their scalability and controllability. The key to achieving high controllability in spray synthesis is understanding the complex relationship between the precursor spray droplet evaporation process and the final product structure. Although several studies on precursor droplet evaporation have been… Read more

Urban building energy modeling (UBEM) and its associated tools have proliferated in recent years, leading to various model development, simulation, calibration approaches, and use cases. UBEM is becoming a valid policy support tool to guide planning and intervention efforts at the neighborhood and city scale. However, current UBEM workflows focus primarily on the physical properties… Read more

Chemical bath deposition (CBD) is widely used to deposit tin oxide (SnOx ) as an electron-transport layer in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The conventional recipe uses thioglycolic acid (TGA) to facilitate attachments of SnOx particles onto the substrate. However, nonvolatile TGA is reported to harm the operational stability of PSCs. In this work, a volatile… Read more

Efficient and affordable synthesis of Li + functional ceramics is crucial for the scalable production of solid electrolytes for batteries. Li‐garnet Li 7 La 3 Zr 2 O 12−d (LLZO), especially its cubic phase (cLLZO), attracts attention due to its high Li + conductivity and wide electrochemical stability window. However, high sintering temperatures raise concerns… Read more

The accuracy and robustness of numerical models of geologic CO2$$\hbox {CO}_2$$ sequestration are almost never quantified with respect to direct observations that provide a ground truth. Here, we conduct CO2$$\hbox {CO}_2$$ injection experiments in meter-scale, quasi-2D tanks with porous media representing stratigraphic sections of the subsurface, and compare them to numerical simulations of those experiments. We evaluate (1)… Read more

Controlling cell adhesion to surfaces is an important, but difficult, problem. Current methods to control adhesion rely on surface functionalization, which have limited material choice to avoid cell toxicity and are typically cell specific. Herein, cell adhesion is modulated by using nanometric high‐k dielectric films. Voltage is applied across the dielectric film, changing the film… Read more

Thin-film photovoltaics with functional components on the order of a few microns, present an avenue toward realizing additive power onto any surface of interest without excessive addition in weight and topography. To date, demonstrations of such ultra-thin photovoltaics have been limited to small-scale devices, often prepared on glass carrier substrates with only a few layers… Read more

Energy storage can provide a range of revenue streams for investors in electricity markets. However, as their deployments continue to rise, storage will no longer be a player on the sidelines and remain a price-taker, rather, these assets will start to impact prices. In this study, accounting for energy storage as a price-maker and using… Read more

Wrinkles invariably form during graphene growth and post-growth transfer, limiting graphene films’ large-scale uniformity for electronic applications. We report a transfer-free synthesis route for highly-uniform bilayer graphene directly on dielectric substrates—SiO2, sapphire, and MgO—by interfacial carbon precipitation. Ultrathin Pd leaves having a thickness of 150 nm and grain size up to 100 µm are laminated onto the… Read more

Civilian fusion demands structural materials that can withstand the harsh environments imposed inside fusion plasma reactors. The structural materials often transmute under 14.1 MeV fast neutrons, producing helium (He), which embrittles the grain boundary (GB) network. Here, it is shown that neutron-friendly and mechanically strong nano-phases with atomic-scale free volume can have low He-embedding energy E… Read more