Our Research
The Gao Liu Research Lab combines synthetic chemistry, composite engineering and electrochemistry to solve interdisciplinary problems in energy generation, storage and usage. We use advanced diagnostics to understand fundamental and critical issues in energy systems, as well as synthetic techniques to develop new materials that improve overall system performance.
Research Areas
Recent Highlights
Blog
Sep-24-2020
At the end of September, we bid farewell to our group member Zhimeng Liu, a visiting graduate student from Sichuan U (China), who has been in the group since September, 2018. He will now return to China to defend his thesis based on the work he has done here at LBNL. We sincerely wish him good luck on the thesis defense and all the best to his future endeavors!
At the same time, we welcome our new member Joe Papp. Joe is a freshly minted Ph.D. who just defended his thesis in Chemical Engineering at UC Berkeley in August. He will now lead efforts to test electrochemical properties of phase… more
Jul-17-2020
Congratulations to Zhimeng Liu and coauthors on the recent publication of their article "Reversible Crosslinked Polymer Binder for Recyclable Lithium Sulfur Batteries with High Performance" in Advanced Functional Materials! This paper details a novel Li-S binder system consisting of commercially-available poly(acrylic acid) and poly(ethyleneimine), which react to form a dissolvable ionic crosslinked polymer (DICP) network. Not only does this binder lend improved cycling performance to sulfur/carbon composite cathodes, but it readily dissolves under basic aqeuous conditions, paving the way for… more
Jul-15-2020
Check out our new paper "A Micelle Electrolyte Enabled by Fluorinated Ether Additives for Polysulfide Suppression and Li Metal Stabilization in Li-S Battery," published on Frontiers Chemistry on Jun 19th, 2020. This paper introduced our pioneering research on developing fluorinated electrolyte additives for advanced battery applications. As demonstrated in the paper, the novel electrolyte additive is validated to be effective addressing polysulfide dissolution and Li metal incompatibility issues… more
Recent Publications
Hubble, Dion, David Emory Brown, Yangzhi Zhao, Chen Fang, Jonathan Lau, Bryan D. McCloskey, and Gao Liu."Liquid electrolyte development for low-temperature lithium-ion batteries."Energy & Environmental Science
15.2 (2022) 550 - 578. DOI
Zhu, Tianyu, Thanh-Nhan Tran, Chen Fang, Dongye Liu, Subramanya P. Herle, Jie Guan, Girish Gopal, Ajey Joshi, James Cushing, Andrew M. Minor, and Gao Liu."Lithium substituted poly(amic acid) as a water-soluble anode binder for high-temperature pre-lithiation."Journal of Power Sources
521 (2022) 230889. DOI
Xiao, , Haiqing, Chen Fang, Tianyue Zheng, Hua Bai, and Gao Liu."Investigation of SiOx anode fading mechanism with limited capacity cycling."APL Materials
10.1 (2022) 011108. DOI