Hongtao Zhong
Michigan State University, MI·Engineering
Storing energy cheaply is central to running power grids on solar and wind. Cathodes based on iron oxide (FeOx) for metal-air batteries are promising because they are inexpensive and can hold a lot of energy.
- Fields
Engineering
Physics
Materials Science
- Topics
plasma
electrochemistry
energy storage
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2029
What they work on
- Investigate how the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) of a plasma shapes electrochemical surface reactions in metal-air conversion cathodes, including iron oxide (FeOx) materials.
- Use an operando plasma cell, which monitors and controls the plasma in real time, to directly correlate plasma properties with electrochemical behavior.
- Determine whether tuning plasma conditions can steer reaction pathways and speed up slow electron-transfer (redox) reactions to improve cathode performance.
More about the research
But their chemical reactions are slow: electrons move sluggishly and the reactions face high energy barriers, which limits performance. This collaborative project asks whether plasma, a highly reactive ionized gas, can speed up those reactions and give researchers finer control over them.
Why it matters
Low-cost, high-capacity batteries are needed to integrate clean energy sources into the grid. If plasma can speed up slow reactions in cheap materials such as iron oxide cathodes, it could make energy storage more efficient and affordable, and could inform the design of plasma-assisted reactors for fuel cells and catalysis.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xin Xu
Arizona State University Campus Immersion, AZ·Materials Science
Test how the plasma electron energy distribution function, the spread of energies among free electrons in an ionized gas, affects electrochemical surface reactions on metal-air conversion cathodes.
Mark Kushner
University of Michigan, MI·Engineering
Develop computational models of the interface between an atmospheric-pressure plasma and water, emphasizing how electrons and ions accelerate into the water surface where PFAS 'forever chemicals' collect.
Ellen Matson
University of Rochester, NY·Chemistry
Determine how hydrogen atoms are taken up at the surface of polyoxovanadate–alkoxide and –carboxylate clusters, molecular stand-ins for reducible metal oxide nanomaterials, mapping structure–function relationships through self-assembly and post-synthetic modification.
The school
Michigan State University: 28 labs on PI Pages, $932M a year on research, 555 research doctorates a year.
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