News: Yang Shao-Horn

Extending the life of low-cost, compact, lightweight batteries

November 8, 2018

Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries available, but they can have a major limitation: When not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to substantially reduce that corrosion,…  

Transparent Graphene

September 13, 2018

The vast majority of computing devices today are made from silicon, the second most abundant element on Earth, after oxygen. Silicon can be found in various forms in rocks, clay, sand, and soil. And while it is not the best semiconducting material that exists on the planet, it is by far the most…  

Shao-Horn wins 2018 RSC Faraday Medal

July 31, 2018

Yang Shao-Horn is W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT and the first female winner of this prestigious medal. Her research is centered on exploiting chemical/materials physics and physical/materials chemistry principles at interface and in bulk to design materials/processes and control the…  

A new way to find better battery materials

March 26, 2018

A new approach to analyzing and designing new ion conductors — a key component of rechargeable batteries — could accelerate the development of high-energy lithium batteries, and possibly other energy storage and delivery devices such as fuel cells, researchers say. The new approach relies…  

Researchers clarify mystery about proposed battery material

August 15, 2017

Battery researchers agree that one of the most promising possibilities for future battery technology is the lithium-air (or lithium-oxygen) battery, which could provide three times as much power for a given weight as today’s leading technology, lithium-ion batteries. But tests of various…  

DMSE Leads Largest Project in $35M Toyata Grant

April 4, 2017

"Three MIT-affiliated research teams will receive about $10M in funding as part of a $35M materials science discovery program launched by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI)." - MIT News Professors Jeffrey Grossman and Yang Shao-Horn will lead the largest funded project focused on the…  

Shao-Horn publishes in Journal of Physical Chemistry

February 16, 2017

"Scientists and producers usually face a problem to elaborate batteries of new types: lighter but at the same time more powerful and with higher energy storage capacity. One of the possible ways to do that is to replace modern lithium-ion batteries by so called lithium-air batteries. Such…  

Study: Some catalysts contribute their own oxygen for reactions

January 9, 2017

"Chemical reactions that release oxygen in the presence of a catalyst, known as oxygen-evolution reactions, are a crucial part of chemical energy storage processes, including water splitting, electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction, and ammonia production. The kinetics of this type of reaction…  

Materials Day Recap

November 4, 2016

Our friends at the Materials Processing Center recently held their annual Materials Day event. As part of the day of events, several DMSE faculty participated in a series of talks about battery challenges. The day also included a Poster Session contest. The winners of the contest were Ping-Chun…  

New kind of supercapacitor made without carbon

October 11, 2016

Professor Yang Shao-Horn co-authored a paper recently published by Nature Materials regarding supercapacitors that do not rely on carbon. This story was also featured on the MIT Home Page!  "Energy storage devices called supercapacitors have become a hot area of research, in part…  

Water vapor sets some oxides aflutter

October 3, 2016

A research paper written by Professor Yang Shao-Horn and DMSE Alumnus Binghong Han describing new-found interactions between perovskites, water vapor, and streams of electrons, was recently published by Nature Materials. "When one type of an oxide structure called perovskite is…  

DMSE Student Binghong Han wins award for Outstanding Students Abroad

May 5, 2016

This year, Binghong Han, one of the DMSE graduate students under Yang Shao-Horn, was awarded the Chinese Government Award for Oustanding Students Abroad for his research in reaction and degradation mechanisms for oxygen electrochemical processes in fuel cells and batteries. …  

Non-wetting surfaces promote chemical reaction rates

July 30, 2015

Two key physical phenomena take place at the surfaces of materials: catalysis and wetting. A catalyst enhances the rate of chemical reactions; wetting refers to how liquids spread across a surface. Now researchers at MIT and other institutions have found that these two processes, which…  

Prof. Shao-Horn named to WM Keck Professorship

July 20, 2015

Professor Gang Chen, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, writes, "Professor Yang Shao-Horn has been appointed the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy. "Yang is internationally renowned for her work and expertise in electrochemical energy conversion and storage. She has made…  

Teaming Up for Better Batteries

June 2, 2015

MIT’s Yang Shao-Horn and BMW’s Odysseas Paschos collaborate to advance fundamental research on lithium-ion battery technologies. Launched last year in the United States, the BMW i3 is a well-received electric automobile that highlights the promise and the practicality of current electric…  

Fostering U.S.-Russia energy innovation

April 15, 2015

Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage brings together researchers from MIT and two Russian institutes to develop advanced batteries and fuel cells.  

Observing real-time charging of lithium-air batteries

May 12, 2013

A team of researchers including Professor Carl Thompson, Professor Yang Shao-Horn, and Robert Mitchell PhD have used transmission electron microscope imaging to reveal what happens during chariung of lithium-air batteries. Their findings couldleadto improved batteries for electric cars.  See the…  

Research in lithium-air batteries

October 8, 2012

New research from Professor Yang Shao-Horn reveals the fundamental reactions behind advanced battery technology, by advanced imaging method, and could lead to improved materials. See the full story at the…