Goals

• Organize a schedule that will allots sufficient time for research/readings

• Set up meetings with PI and mentor

• Read into the basics of Electrochemistry in relations to articles (1) and (2)

Accomplished (11 hours)

• 10/05/2020 (3 hours): Developed a basic understanding of the structure of the electrode-electrolyte interface and variation of potentials governed by redox active species and mass transport mechanisms relevance to electrochemistry.

• 10/06/2020 (3 hour): Created team website. Attended first ENG 20 lecture.

• 10/08/2020 (2 hours): Reviewed Physics 2B and Chem 6CH materials, specifically capacitance, time constant of an electronic circuit, and Nernst equation.

• 10/09/2020 (3 hour): HW 1 for ENG 20. First meeting with mentor to discuss the readings

Week 1 (01/04/2021)

Goals

• Complete the thermodynamic description of lithium intercalation through spinel manganese oxide for research proposal

• Understand the structural properties that facilitate lithium intercalation in manganese oxide

• Find a best activated carbon particle size from literatures that can maximize the porosity of the MnO2/activated carbon mixture

Accomplished

• 01/04/2021 (2 hours) Reviewed the Madelung constant for cubic crystal systems from a previous post. Read about the ionic description of LixMn2O4 spinel systems and how the drive of lithium intercalation through spinel manganese oxide is dependent on lithium concentration (Primary Source [3]).

• 01/06/2021 (5 hours) Read about the investigation on cathode materials based on manganese oxides and how the carbon additives, types of MnO2, and Nickle doping concentration affect the electrochemical behavior of the resulting cells (Primary Source [13]). Read about the Gibbs free energy change calculation for the reaction of lithium with manganese oxides and verifications of calculation by comparing it to the Gibbs free energy received from the charge-discharge potential of the reaction against a metallic lithium counter electrode (Primary Source [11]). Read about the Madelung derivations to find a general formula to compute the Madelung constant for spinel structures with metal valences of the pairs (2,3), or (3,2.5), or (4,2) taken tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively (Primary Source [7]).

• 01/07/2021 (1 hour) Met with Hongpeng to talk about anion position parameter, Madelung constant, Gibbs free energy, and visualization of the spinel structure using VESTA.

Week 2 (01/11/2021)

Goals

• Update the team research proposal

• Find and fix all grammatical errors

• Read more literatures

Accomplished

• 01/11/2021 (5 hours) Fixed the misconceptions in the research proposal. Included more details into how to evaluate the adsorbing capability of the lithium ion sieve. Bibtex the references. Adjusted formatting of proposal.

• 1/15/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

Week 3 (01/17/2021)

Goals

• Complete the material list

• Find a sufficient heating mechanism for the experiment

Accomplished

• 01/17/2021 (2 hours) Worked with Aurelio to create a list of materials to be used. Cleared out a space to do the experiment at Aurelio's apartment.

• 1/18/2021 (2 hours) Read review paper on lithium batteries (Secondary source [13]), the short-comings of LMO and other batteries are discussed and existing methods to improve their electrochemical performance are summarized.

• 01/22/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

Week 4 (01/24/2021)

Goals

• Get the material list verified by mentor and PI

Accomplished

• 01/17/2021 (2 hours) Worked with Aurelio to fix the material list and find a sufficient heating mechanism using Arduino to regulate/control the temperature.

• 01/29/2021 (2 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting

Week 5 (01/31/2021)

Goals

• Awaiting for approval of material list and set up

Accomplished

• 02/05/2021 (2 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting

• 02/06/2021 (2 hour) Read primary source [14]. Formulate addition experimental steps to further analyze and figure out how to determine whether the hydrogen content in MnO2 will make a different in adsorption capability.

Week 6 (02/07/2021)

Goals

• Awaiting for approval of research procedure and clear off questions about the lab

Accomplished

• 02/08/2021 (2 hours) Worked with Aurelio to come up with detail procedure based on current understanding of the lab situation

Week 7 (02/14/2021)

Goals

• Get some progress

Accomplished

• 02/19/2021 (1 hours) Meeting with Dr. Chen and Hongpeng to finalize the materials list and procedure

Week 8 (02/21/2021)

Goals

• Get Materials

Accomplished

• 02/25/2021 (2 hours) Lab tour and received materials from Hongpeng.

Week 9 (02/28/2021)

Goals

• Run the experiment

Accomplished

• 03/02/2021 (8 hours) Ran the experiment twice. The set up was simple but there were a lot of improvisations we did with materials found in the garage. For safety, during the experiment we had nitrile gloves and masks on, and once all the chemicals are in the solution, we set a large plastic bag on top of everything to lower the possibility of accidental contamination (which happened in the first run).

Week 10 (03/07/2021)

Goals

• Run the experiment another two times and wait for updates from Hongpeng regarding the ICP-MS measurements.

Accomplished

• 03/07/2021 (8 hours) Ran the experiment once with a different carbon black type. The set up was the same as the last one but after the 6 hours time mark, we used a standard brita filter to try to remove the carbon black and excess chloride from the solution. Whether the desired LiMn2O4 products will also be filtered we were not sure and so solution samples after filtration was collected for further analysis.

• 03/09/2021 (8 hours) Ran the experiment once more with another different carbon black type. Same set up but we resorted back to use a cloth piece for filtration to better collect powder samples. Different materials for filtration that we got from Home Depot were tested but the pillowcase from the first trial seems to work best because it is really thick while still allowing water to go through (not water resistant).

Week 1 (03/29/2021)

Goals

• Waiting for the sample to be analyzed

Accomplished

• 04/02/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

Week 2 (04/04/2021)

Goals

• Do some simple experiments

• Wait for sample to be analyzed

• Review selectrodialysis from previous papers to prepare for presentation

Accomplished

• 04/09/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

• 04/11/2021 (4 hours) Review papers on selectrodialysis and conduct simple experiments to measure the potential differences of different materials and objects found at home. Test the solubility of a small amount of MnO2 in water at elevated temperature to see if it will make a different upon addition of proportional LiCl (conclude: MnO2 is not soluble even at warm-hot temperature and intercalation of lithium can occurs without dissolving the MnO2).

Week 3 (04/11/2021)

Goals

• Rerun the trials with carbon black and ketjen black due to ununiform trend

• Attend GEAR meeting and meeting with Ved

Accomplished

• 04/12/2021 (0.1 hours) Meeting with Ved to make sure everything is going to according to plan

• 04/14/2021 (2 hours) GEAR poster presentation.

• 04/02/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

Week 4 (04/18/2021)

Goals

• Rerun the trials with carbon black and ketjen black due to ununiform trend

Accomplished

• 04/20/2021 (0.5 hours) Meeting with Hongpeng to get filters and materials.

• 04/23/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

• 04/24/2021 (6 hours) Rerun the trial with carbon black.

Week 5 (04/25/2021)

Goals

• Work on GEAR poster's information

Accomplished

• 04/26/2021 (1 hours) Fix peer reviewed poster's information

• 04/30/2021 (1.5 hours) Attended Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

• 05/01/2021 (1 hours) Planned for lab presentation, read paper on microwave-induced Ni doping on spinel lithium manganite.

Week 6 (05/02/2021)

Goals

• Work on GEAR poster's information and prepared for presentation in Dr. Chen's lab

Accomplished

• 05/03/2021 (1 hours) Work on results and discussion parts of poster

• 05/05/2021 (2 hours) Worked on making the poster with Aurelio

Week 7 (05/09/2021)

Goals

• Prepared for presentation in Dr. Chen's lab

Accomplished

• 05/11/2021 (0.2 hours) Meeting with Ved.

• 05/11/2021 (4 hours) Working on the presentation with Aurelio

• 05/13/2021 (4 hours) Working on the presentation with Aurelio

• 05/14/2021 (2 hours) Dr. Chen's lab meeting.

Week 8 (05/16/2021)

Goals

• Making the poster, analyze ICP-MS data and complete results and discussion.

Accomplished

• 05/17/2021 (2 hours) Working on the poster to turn in for peer review

• 05/20/2021 (3 hours) Working on the poster with Aurelio

• 05/21/2021 (5 hours) Plot ICP-MS data using MATLAB

• 05/22/2021 (4 hours) Working on the poster with Aurelio

Week 9 (05/23/2021)

Goals

• Making the poster, make sense of the trend of data collected

Accomplished

• 05/25/2021 (5 hours) Working on the poster with Aurelio

• 05/27/2021 (3 hours) Fitting the ICP-MS data to figure out reaction order

• 05/28/2021 (4 hours) Personal meeting with Dr. Chen, attended the lab meeting, personal meeting with Hongpeng, worked with Aurelio to finalize the poster