[E&E seminars] Ilan Gur: New Frontiers in Battery Technology and Markets

[Tonio Buonassisi]

New Frontiers in Battery Technology and Markets
Dr. Ilan Gur
Tuesday May 11, 12:30pm, 36-462


ABSTRACT:

In 1883, the great inventor Thomas Edison is quoted as saying: “The storage battery is, in my opinion, a catch-penny, a sensation, a mechanism for swindling the public by stock companies . . . Scientifically, storage is all right, but, commercially as absolute a failure as one can imagine.”

Reviewing the history of batteries, a case can be made that Edison was not too far off.  Yet today, energy storage is considered one of the biggest market opportunities of our lifetime, with the potential to usher in a new age of electric vehicles and a smarter, more efficient, and secure electricity grid.  In this talk, we’ll work toward understanding Edison’s sentiment and evaluating it in the context of today’s excitement over battery technology and markets   The talk will present a general introduction to battery technology and an overview of challenges and opportunities shaping the development of battery solutions for electric vehicles and larges scale renewable energy storage. 


BIO:

Ilan Gur is the Cofounder and Director of Marketing and Corporate Development for Seeo, Inc, a venture backed company commercializing a new generation of lithium batteries.  He holds a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where he has developed and taught graduate courses on the technologies and markets of advanced batteries and photovoltaics.  Before Seeo, Ilan's scientific research focused on novel materials for low-cost solar cells.  His work serves as a basis for Solexant, a startup aimed at enabling grid-parity thin film photovoltaics.  Ilan works passionately to develop, promote, and commercialize clean technologies that realize the potential for novel materials to shape our energy future. 


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Tonio Buonassisi
M.I.T.   Room 35-213
Lab for Photovoltaics Research
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
 
E: buonassisi at mit.edu
W: http://pv.mit.edu
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