Using Cellulose to Store and Harvest Energy
Abstract: This talk will cover the use of cellulosic materials for the harvesting and storage of energy. The talk will cover the history of cellulosic materials used in both batteries and capacitors, introducing the use of nanocellulose, and carbon materials derived from this material for use as electrodes and also as the separators in batteries. Work carried out on supercapacitors will also be discussed, and how things are progressing with the use of biomass for capacitive deionisation devices. Finally, some very recent work on the combination of graphene and cellulose for the production of triboelectric nanogenerators will be introduced and discussed, showing how it might be possible to have an all-cellulose/polymer device, and potentially place such devices on clothing and other structures for the generation and storage of power.
Bio: Steve Eichhorn graduated with a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Leeds in 1993. He then went on to do a Master’s degree and PhD (1995-1998) at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in the Paper Science Department. Following that he carried out postdoctoral research under the supervision of Professor Bob Young FRS in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (1999-2002). He was hired as a new lecturer in 2002 in the Materials Science department, which then became the School of Materials in 2004 when UMIST merged with the Victoria University of Manchester. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer and Reader and then went to become Chair of Materials Science at the University of Exeter in 2011. At Exeter he built an activity around sustainable materials research, and also took on leadership roles as a co-Director of an EPSRC funded doctoral training centre and he was the Head of Engineering (from 2014-2017). In September 2017 he moved to the University of Bristol and into the newly formed Bristol Composites Institute, and was interim Head of School (for the CAME School of Engineering) in 2020. He has been awarded the Rosenhain Medal and Prize in 2012 from the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3) for his contributions to Materials Science, the Hayashi Jisuke prize from the Japanese Cellulose Society (in 2017), the Swinburne Medal and Prize (IOM3) in 2020, and was the Chair of the ACS’s Cellulose and Renewable Materials Division. He was also made a Fellow of the Division in the same year. In 2021 he was awarded an EPSRC ED&I fellowship on Biobased Composites. The ED&I programme of work has a specific emphasis on Black and Black heritage staff and students.