Detail:

Abstract： 
Breakthroughs in energy conversion and storage technologies are desired throughout the world due to the ever-growing demand for energy. Supercapacitors, as important supplement to batteries, offer much higher power density but with limited energy density. Hydrogen-air fuel cells, on the other hand, are environmental-friendly but expensive alternatives to existing power supplies in both transportation and stationary applications. Both technologies are in their embryonic states, but are heavily investigated by researchers all over the world. This talk will introduce Dr. Gao’s research activities in related topics, but with focuses on a new material, graphene oxide, which was once noted as an important precursor to graphene. There now exists an extensive literature regarding the synthesis, chemical structure, reactivity, properties of GO, as well as its use in multiple applications. Our work here use films of GO as proton conductors in both supercapacitors and hydrogen-air fuel cells. Degradation of GO has been reported, which presents a significant challenge for all potential applications of GO. We show that degraded GO can regain epoxy groups with ozone treatment and result in 75% increase of the proton conductivity. Overall, free-standing ozonated GO films offer improved device performance when used in supercapacitors and hydrogen fuel cells as proton conductors.

Who is she?

Wei Gao is an assistant professor in the College of Textiles (Textile Engineering, Chemistry & Science) at North Carolina State University. Before she joined NCSU, she was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from Nanjing University in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in chemistry from Rice University in 2012.