Academic lecture：Recent achievements in human-robot collaboration for assembly
Speaker： Richard M. Laine, Professor of University of Michigan
Time： 2025.11.14 12:00-2025.11.14 13:00
Location： Room 200, Yue-Kong Pao Library's Annex
Abstract：
Hard or turbostratic carbon anodes are most often derived from thermolysis of biomass in oxygen free environments and considerable data has been accrued to suggest that low specific surface area HC offers the most stable materials for lithiation and sodiation. As part of our efforts to valorize rice hull ash (RHA, 90 wt % SiO2/8 wt % C), produced in 150k ton/yr in the U.S. alone; we learned to first distillatively remove excess SiO2 to produce silica depleted RHA or SDRHA40-70 (40-70 wt.% SiO2). The resulting materials are nanocomposites of carbon and SiO2 intermixed at nm length scales.
The SDRHA carbon can be used as a reductant, and because of the very small diffusion distances, SDRHAxx can be carbothermally reduced to electronics grade silicon (SiPV, 5’9’s purity) or SiC (Ar) or Si2N2O (90N2/10H2) or Si3N4 (N2) at much lower temperatures (1250°-1500 °C) than those used to produce the same materials commercially and at higher purities. At certain ratios, HC is a coproduct also intimately mixed with the major silicon containing material.
We have previously found that SiC/HC mixtures can serve as anode materials (coin cells) offering capacities of ≈ 950 mAh/g after long term cycling. This usually is with HC contents of just 10-15 wt. %. In this talk we explore increasing the ratio of HC:SiC via carbothermal reduction of lower wt. % SiO2:C ratios in SDRHA40 to assess the effects on LIB capacity and rates of change and as time permits, sodium ion battery (NIB) properties.
Biography ：
Richard M. Laine is currently a full Professor in the Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and Professor and previous Director of the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Center.
Dr. Laine received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Southern California (Prof. Robert Bau). Following postdoctoral studies (R.F. Heck, Delaware; P.C. Ford, UCSB), Dr. Laine worked at Stanford Research Institute International for 11 years, last as Associate Director of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry Programs. Dr. Laine joined UM in 1990 as Associate Professor. He is a 2013 recipient of the International Fellow Award of Society of Polymer Science of Japan. He was awarded a 1000 Foreign Experts Award from P.R.C. in 2012. He became an ACS fellow in 2015.
Major research areas for the Laine group include the synthesis and processing of inorganic and organometallic hybrid polymers and nanooxide powders. Research in the nanooxide powder area emphasizes the direct synthesis of single and mixed-metal oxide nanopowders by flame spray pyrolysis of mixed-metal alkoxides. The resulting powders are characterized for their catalytic (energy conversion in particular) and photonic applications. The effects of processing conditions on the catalytic, photonic and in some instances, mechanical properties are of primary interest.
The Laine group has over 330 published papers, 49 patents and 12 books edited on various aspects of mixed-metal oxide nanopowders and organic/inorganic hybrid materials.
