Formation Challenges of Lithium-Ion Battery Manufacturing

David Wood is a Senior Staff Scientist and University of Tennessee Bredesen Center Adjunct Faculty Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), researching novel electrode architectures, mass transport phenomena, solid-liquid surface chemistry, advanced processing methods, manufacturing science, and materials characterization for low-temperature fuel cells, PEM electrolyzers, and lithium-ion batteries, and has been employed there since 2009. He is also the former ORNL Fuel Cell Technologies Program Manager (2011–2018), the former Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Team and Group Leader (2015–2017), and a well-known energy conversion and storage researcher with an industrial and academic career that began in 1995. From 1997 to 2002, he was employed by General Motors Corporation and SGL Carbon Group, excelling at applied R&D related to automotive and stationary PEFC technology. Later work (2003–2009) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Cabot Corporation focused on elucidation of key chemical degradation mechanisms, development of accelerated testing methods, and component development. Dr. Wood received his BS in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 1994, his MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1998, and his PhD in Electrochemical Engineering from the University of New Mexico in 2007. He was part of two LANL research teams that won the DOE Hydrogen Program R&D Award for outstanding achievement in 2005 and 2009. He was also part of the Cabot Corporation Direct Methanol Fuel Cell team, which won the Samuel W. Bodman Award for Excellence in 2008. Dr. Wood was also the 2011 winner of the ORNL Early Career Award for Engineering Accomplishment and led a team that won both a 2013 R&D 100 award and 2014 Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) award with Porous Power Technologies. He has received 19 patents and patent applications, authored 93 refereed journal articles and transactions papers, and authored 2 book chapters. Jianlin Li is a R&D Staff and University of Tennessee Bredesen Center Adjunct Faculty Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). His research interest lies in materials synthesis, processing and characterization, electrode engineering, and manufacturing for energy storage and conversion. Dr. Li received his BS in Materials Chemistry and his MS in Materials Science from University of Science and Technology of China in 2001 and 2004, respectively, and his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Florida in 2009. He is a recipient of several prestigious awards including two R&D 100 awards and one Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) award. He has received 14 patents and patent applications and authored 96 refereed journal articles and 3 book chapters. Seong Jin An is a Principal Engineer at Samsung Electronics leading rechargeable battery platforms for smartphone applications and has been employed there since late 2017. He had researched solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) in the lithium-ion battery as a guest at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) (2014–2017). He worked at Samsung SDI in South Korea as a senior engineer developing PEM fuel cell stacks (2003–2011) and GS Fuel Cell in South Korea developing fuel processors for PEM fuel cell systems (2001–2003). He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Seoul National University of Science and Technology in 1999, his MS in Chemical Engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul in 2001, his MS in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh in 2014, and his PhD in Energy Science & Engineering from University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 2017. He studied PEM fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries with fellowships during his MS and PhD programs. He has received over 200 patents and authored 21 refereed journal articles and transactions papers.