| dc.description.abstract | Rapid advances in technology over the past several years have presented our generation with the need for sustainable and dependable on-demand energy storage solutions. With research efforts focused on improving battery technology, the lithium-ion battery has the promise to provide capacity necessary to meet increased energy storage demands. However, the materials and manufacturing methods used to make lithium-ion batteries have a significant carbon footprint. Consequently, there is a growing need for sustainable battery development to mitigate CO2 emissions while simultaneously designing technologies to enable higher energy densities, faster charging rates, and multifunctional architectures for next-generation energy storage systems. In this dissertation, I focus on developing new strategies to address these challenges in energy and sustainability. First, I will discuss the electrolytic reduction of CO2 to produce carbon nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This carbonate mediated electrochemical system opens the door to the capture of CO2 and transformation into value-added materials. I will highlight the delicate balance between transport in the growth environment and nucleation at the cathode surface to dictate the type of nanostructure that is grown. Next, I will show how these sustainably synthesized carbon nanomaterials can be integrated into energy storage systems via electrophoretic deposition (EPD). EPD is an alternative battery manufacturing strategy that can further reduce the carbon footprint of battery manufacturing while enabling novel battery architectures that increase performance. Lastly, I will demonstrate how repackaging the battery into a multifunctional platform has noteworthy system-level advantages. Integrating CNTs and active battery materials into carbon fiber reinforced structural materials enables the design of composite batteries with meaningful energy density, relative to the total mass of the system, that can facilitate gravimetric and volumetric cargo capacity of CubeSats. This work, at the interface between materials science and chemical engineering, can bring many powerful and sustainable advantages critical for advancing energy storage. | |
