Beautiful weather in Orlando, Fla. beckoned these attendees at the Electronic Materials and Applications meeting.
The 2012 Electronic Materials and Applications meeting opened yesterday in Orlando, Fla. This is the third consecutive year for the event organized by ACerS’ Electronics Division and Basic Science Division, and this year’s gathering attracted just under 200 participants.
The program focuses on electronic ceramics for energy generation, conversion and storage applications. There are eight symposia covering advanced dielectrics, piezoelectrics, materials for batteries, thermoelectrics, metamaterials and microwave materials, as well as a symposium dedicated to sustainability and green materials processing.
Yesterday’s plenary speaker was Tony Gozdz, principle scientist at A123 Systems, pinch-hitting for Bart Riley one of the cofounders of A123, who was unable to come at the last minute. Gozdz, a polymer chemist by training, really knows batteries and set the tone for the conference by outlining the materials science and engineering successes, ambitions and challenges that are yet to be overcome.
The talk, “Advances in Lithium-ion Technology for Automotive and Grid Application,” started with a brief history of battery technology and quickly focused in on the development of lithium-containing batteries beginning in the 1960s. Observing, “The chemistry of batteries is the chemistry of interfaces, basically,” Gozdz went on to describe how solutions to surface and interface problems drove the evolution of lithium batteries, and continues to do so. He outlined A123’s work developing nanophosphate cathode materials, and offered some thoughts on nascent energy storage ideas and on the energy paradigm shift underway in this country. I’ll have more on the three plenary talks in a later post.
Meanwhile, enjoy this photoblog from Orlando!
Amit Goyal, chair of the Electronic Division, welcomes attendees to EMA 2012
Tony Gozdz of A123 Systems delivered the opening plenary talk on lithium batteries for automotive and grid applications.
Students polish their talks during the mid-morning coffee break.
A special symposium gave students the opportunity to present their work. Here, Manuel Rivas, a senior at U. Texas-Pan American, presents his work on doped barium titanate.
Christopher Turner, PhD candidate at U. Florida, fields questions during the poster session and reception.
Alp Sehirlioglu and Geoff Brennecka at the reception.