CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion can be traced back to the Friction and Solid Imperfection Joint Key Laboratory (the part at University of Science and Technology of China). In 2004, it was expanded and renamed as Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Materials. In 2007, it cooperated with Shanghai Institute of Ceramics under the guideline of “Cooperation of Institutes and Departments” and was renamed as New Energy Materials Joint Laboratory. In 2008, it was officially endorsed as CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion, affiliated to University of Science and Technology of China and Shanghai Institute of Ceramics.

The orientation of this laboratory is to set up an interdisciplinary center that covers design, preparation and application of new energy materials and also an education base, with solid imperfection physical chemistry as fundamental discipline, highly efficient energy conversion materials as principal study object, preparation of ceramics and membrane as research strategy, fuel cells, thermo/photo-electric devices and highly efficient energy storage battery as prior research topic. The main research activities of this Lab include: (1) solid imperfection physical chemistry and materials design; (2) preparation of energy conversion materials and key techniques; (3) key materials of fuel cells; (4) thermoelectric and photoelectric conversion materials; (5) key materials of energy storage battery. Multi-disciplinary cross and complementary are quite encouraged, especially in discipline of materials, chemistry, physics and energy science. Though constructional design and controllable preparation of materials, combined with performance analysis, this laboratory aims at discovering and recognizing the mechanism of energy conversion and storage, and dissolving key technical problems of fuel cells, photoelectric conversion devices and energy storage batteries.

At present, there are about 42 research staffs in this laboratory, including 25 professors (research investigators), 1 winner of “Thousand Talents Program”, 5 winners of National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, 12 winners of “Hundred Talents Program” of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), 1 winner of “New Century Excellent Talents of Ministry of Education, and 1 winner of “Hundred, Thousand, Ten Thousand Talents” program. Now, the director of academic committee of this laboratory is Prof. Li-Quan Chen, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the director of the laboratory is Prof. Chu-Sheng Chen.

Currently, the laboratory embraces two super-clean labs and five research groups, i.e. solid imperfection and transport group, preparation of materials and key techniques group, fuel cells and fuel processing key materials group, energy storage battery and key materials group, thermo-electric conversion materials group. The instruments and equipments of this laboratory include scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray measurement system, laser conductometer, Mbraun UNLAB inert gas glove box, dual-chamber ultrahigh vacuum multifunction sputtering system, 5 KW-level fuel cell test platform, spark plasma sintering equipment and so on. Some of the equipments characterize national top-class level.

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