News

Zhaoyi successfully defended his MS thesis!

We congratulate Zhaoyi Zheng for successfully defending his MS thesis titled “TWO-COMPONENT ELECTROCHEMICAL COUPLING REACTION FOR END-GROUP ASSISTED ELECTRODEPOSITION OF ULTRATHIN POLYMER FILMS”. Great job Zhaoyi and we are looking forward to your continued research progress as a PhD student in the Werner Lab!

2012 BU Alum Eric Gratz, CTO and Co-founder of Ascend Elements

Ascend Elements CTO Eric Gratz, Ph.D. was recently recognized by Business Insider as an EV industry “Power Player.” The annual list recognizes the 30 most influential leaders in the electric vehicle and Li-ion battery industries.

“Gratz helped cofound and invent Ascend’s technological process for this potentially critical part of the EV-battery supply chain. He has also played a role in Ascend developing a process to recover 98% of the critical raw materials in used lithium-ion batteries and manufacturing scrap. His technology can minimize the need for mining, which is harmful to the environment and the communities in which it operates.”

Ascend Elements was also Named to Fast Company's Annual List of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2023

ROXY turns Moon dust into Oxygen

New technology from Airbus achieves breakthrough chemical reduction process which opens new horizons in human space exploration and could lead to emission-free method for producing metals on Earth.

An international team led by Airbus Defense and Space (Friedrichshafen, Germany) with scientists from Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM (Dresden, Germany), Boston University (Uday Pal) and Abengoa Innovación (Seville, Spain) has successfully demonstrated the production of oxygen and metals from simulated lunar dust (regolith) with the Airbus-invented process named ROXY (Regolith to Oxygen and Metals Conversion). Airbus believes ROXY could revolutionize human space exploration. Currently the project is funded by the European Space Agency.

Symposium in Honor of Prof. Uday Pal – TMS 2024

Honorary Symposia (TMS 2024, Orlando, Florida, (March 3-7, 2024)

High Temperature Electrochemistry: An FMD Symposium Honoring Uday B. Pal

This symposium will cover fundamentals and applications of high-temperature electrochemistry, including using I-V, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), and Distribution of Relaxation Times (DRT) data to understand polarization losses, reaction mechanisms, and device degradation; electrochemical behavior of solid oxide fuel cells and electrolyzers; green engineering as applied to energy conversion and primary production of materials; solid-oxide-membrane based electrolytic cells for converting waste to hydrogen; hydrogen storage materials; devices based on mixed-ion-electron-conducting (MIEC) oxide membranes for generating and separating pure hydrogen from hydrocarbons enabling CO2 sequestration; and electrochemical processes for recovery of critical materials.